Charles Schumer Promises Immigration Reform: ‘We Are Going to Pass That Bill and Sign It into Law This Year’

Immigration reform will be passed this summer, Sen. Charles Schumer predicted Monday during a visit to the 12th annual Daily News/CUNY Citizenship NOW! immigration call-in.

“I want to let you in on a little secret. We are going to pass that bill and sign it into law this year,” said the New York Democrat, one of the authors of a Senate immigration bill that would provide a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants, overhaul the current system and boost border enforcement.

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“We will have an immigration bill–it may not be exactly the Senate bill–on the floor of the House . . . We will come to an agreement. They will put that bill on the President’s desk for President Obama to sign into law,” Schumer said.

“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.”

Daily News Chairman and Publisher Mortimer Zuckerman, CUNY Senior Vice Chancellor Jay Hershenson, Daily News President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Holiber and Daily News Editor-in-Chief Colin Myler welcomed Schumer and a host of other state, city and local officials to help launch the annual immigrant information service, headquartered at Stella and Charles Guttman Community College in midtown Manhattan.

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Hundreds of volunteers–including lawyers, paralegals and law students–will give free, confidential citizenship and immigration information during the hotline’s 2014 run.

The volunteers speak English, Spanish and a long list of other languages. Those present on Monday had the combined capacity to answer questions in a total of 48 different languages.

Mayor de Blasio thanked them for their service and vowed to create a municipal ID card that’s open to undocumented immigrants this year.

“Almost half a million New Yorkers happen not to be documented–they are just as much our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, our coworkers, the people who make our neighborhoods great,” he said.

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