New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer predicted Monday that Congress will pass a comprehensive immigration reform package this summer, and insisted that Republicans would not be re-elected if they fail to move forward on the issue.
"I want to let you in on a little secret. We are going to pass that bill and sign it into law this year," the lawmaker said at the 12th annual Daily News/ CUNY Citizenship NOW! immigration call-in event in Manhattan, according to the
New York Daily News.
The bipartisan bill, which would create a pathway to citizenship for the country's 11 million undocumented immigrants, cleared the Senate last June but is currently stalled in the Republican-controlled House.
"The Republican Party knows if it continues to be seen as anti-immigrant, they're going to lose election after election…Their leadership knows it, and they're trying to convince the rank and file," he said.
Schumer was joined at the event by other New York dignitaries to help launch the annual immigrant information service which gives free, confidential citizenship and immigration information through a hotline staffed by lawyers, paralegals, and law students, according to the Daily News.
"I've had a wonderful experience with this country and there's no [other] country in the world that in a sense welcomes and gives opportunities to immigrants," said Daily News Chairman and Publisher Mortimer Zuckerman, an immigrant from Canada, the Daily News reported.
Schumer was a member of the "Gang of Eight," the bipartisan group of lawmakers who drafted the bill in the Senate last year, and he served as one of the chief negotiators to get the legislation through the chamber.