U.S. Sen. John Cornyn eyes the seemingly impossible: a bipartisan deal on immigration

U.S. Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, center, and James Lankford, R-Okla., review items displayed by a Border Patrol agent Jan. 9 after two Chinese nationals were detained upon entering the U.S. in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The senators were on a night tour led by the National Border Patrol Council. (Credit: Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The Texas Tribune)

EL PASO — A long trail of SUVs snaked out of El Paso carrying a group of U.S. senators into southern New Mexico on a recent, chilly night. Like a funeral procession, the oversized cars glided through traffic with hazard lights on, turning onto a paved road to survey portions of the Mexican border.

In one of the cars was Sen. John Cornyn, who helped organize the delegation’s trip to his home state. The Texas Republican, who has railed about the border crisis from Washington, D.C., for months, wanted his peers to see the situation with their own eyes and better understand Border Patrol’s work and its challenges. They drove into the pitch black night until coming across a pair of Border Patrol agents who had apprehended two weary Chinese nationals.