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Citizens across our state are being bombarded with a series of attack ads against Republican Primary candidates by an entity called Texas Defense PAC. These ads allege that candidates in the Texas Republican primary have committed a variety of offenses on issues across the conservative spectrum, often citing out-of-context quotations or half-truths in an attempt to deceive citizens.
Texas Defense PAC’s sole contributor (to the tune of $9.1M) during the 2026 election cycle is none other than the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which has lobbied heavily for the expansion of casino gambling in Texas.
On February 20, one such ad ran against Cheryl Bean, a candidate for the Texas House District 94 seat that is now open due to Rep. Tony Tinderholt’s retirement. Texans for Strong Borders has endorsed Cheryl Bean for this seat.
The ad raises two main allegations against Bean: first, that her company applied 3 times for H-1B visas and “abusing a system to give jobs to foreign workers that could’ve gone to Americans,” and second, that she “attacked President Trump’s plan to secure our border.”
Putting aside the obvious hypocrisy that Las Vegas Sands Corporation applied 7 times for H-1B workers from 2019 (the time of the cited H-1B applications by Bean’s company) through 2025, let’s examine this claim.
Bean’s husband, John Bean, served as Chief Operations Officer for Air Center Helicopters, Inc starting in 2015 until leaving the role in 2025 (he still serves on the Board of Directors, according to publicly-available information as of writing). Cheryl Bean, by contrast, has never been employed by the company and we can find no record of her role in any operational or employment decision undertaken by ACHI.
According to records maintained by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), ACHI applied and was approved for 2 H-1B visa workers in FY 2019 and was denied for an additional H-1B visa worker in FY 2020.
Since there are no other companies associated with Bean that we can find that applied for H-1B visa workers 3 times, we must assume that by “abuse,” Texas Defense PAC’s ad refers to the denial of an H-1B application in FY 2020. However, denial of an H-1B application does not suggest abuse of the data program, and we were unable to locate any record of ACHI being fined, reprimanded, or disciplined in any way for their utilization of H-1B visa workers. Denial of an H-1B visa application could result from a myriad of clerical issues and denial alone is in no way proof of wrongdoing by the company.
Importantly, we can also find no evidence that they applied for an extension on these visas (unlike Las Vegas Sands Corporation), or that they attempted to convert these temporary workers into immigration-track permanent workers through the Employment-Based (EB) visa program.
Let’s take a moment to examine the second claim, that Bean “attacked President Trump’s plan to secure the border.” The partial quotation that flashes on the screen says, “buoys & fences are not as effective,” and cites a Dallas Express article dated May 1, 2024, which documents a debate during the 2024 Texas GOP primary runoff elections.
An examination of the full context of Bean’s remarks in this article paint an entirely different picture of her positions on border security. The full sentence in the article reads as follows: “Bean said that fences and buoys are not effective in deterring unlawful migrants and argued that the people at the border need to have weapons and apply force if necessary.” They go on to include a further quotation: “We need to empower the people that are down there. That means we need to get a chain of command where there is somebody in charge at the local level that says, yes, you can employ at least mace or something,” and “I don’t know if Texas has the ability, but we need to declare the people crossing our border as terrorists, particularly the cartel.”
Far from attacking President Trump’s plan to secure the border, Bean is stating that physical barriers alone are not a sufficient deterrent and that armed personnel would be necessary to fully secure the border. In keeping with Bean’s recommendation, the Trump administration deployed 1,500 additional active-duty troops to the border within 36 hours of his inauguration, and later deployed a 4,400-soldier Styker brigade combat team to support the efforts of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. President Trump also designated certain international cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations on his first day in office.
Upon an examination of the full context of the facts behind these claims, one might ask why Texas Defense PAC and Las Vegas Sands Corporation would go to the lengths they did to distort Bean’s record on border security and portray her as someone who would be soft on immigration.
The motive is crystal clear: Las Vegas Sands Corporation wants to defeat Cheryl Bean because she opposes the expansion of casino gambling in Texas. Bean led a group called Texans Against Gambling and helped organize community opposition to Sands’ efforts to obtain a special zoning ordinance to build a casino resort in Irving, Texas if casino gambling were to be legalized by the Texas legislature in the future.
Cheryl Bean’s pledged positions on border security are in line with priorities set by the Republican Party of Texas in their 2024 platform and legislative priorities. Bean filled out a candidate questionnaire for Texans for Strong Borders affirming her support for ending taxpayer-funded handouts to illegal aliens, requiring E-Verify for all Texas employers, ending birthright citizenship abuse by illegal aliens, and ending Chain Migration and the Diversity Visa Lottery.
It is because of these policy positions that Bean earned the endorsement of Texans for Strong Borders.
The citizens of Texas should be vigilant for more dishonest smears put out by Texas Defense PAC, armed with the knowledge that their true intentions are in the service of an out-of-state corporation’s financial interests.