There’s no doubt the Cornyn amendment will have far tougher and more tangible security requirements than the current Gang bill. But it is still legalization-first. Under the Cornyn plan, legalization of the 11 million would take place before the security measures listed above are put in place. And that is precisely the problem for the critics, and also for millions of American voters. Those voters, especially the ones who vote in Republican primaries, just don’t trust the government to put new security measures in place once legalization is already a done deal.

The problem, says the Cornyn aide, is that a security-first arrangement is just not politically possible. “You could put legalization contingent on triggers on the front end,” the aide says. “But that’s never going to pass Congress. Democrats are never going to vote for that. Republicans are never going to be unified on that. It’s never going to happen. You’re never going to be able to say, ‘enforcement first.’ It’s a purist position. It’s never going to become law.”

But that is still what many Republicans, including many in the House of Representatives, want. And Cornyn himself seemed to recognize that in an op-ed introducing his proposal published in the Dallas Morning News Wednesday.