Schumer: Amnesty Legislation Dead if Not Passed This Year

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that this is year is the last chance to get amnesty legislation passed.

That urgency led him to call for Congress to pass immigration reform this year and delay the implementation of the law until 2017 in a Sunday appearance on NBC’s Meet The Press.

“This view that we can get this done in 2015, 2016 is false,” Schumer said. “You’ll have the Republican presidential primaries that will pull people to the right.”

Schumer, who has conceded that amnesty would have already passed were it not for the strength of the Tea Party, also implied that the Tea Party would only get in the years ahead and resist the GOP leadership’s push for amnesty, saying the Tea Party movement would “get maximized.”

Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s (D-IL) has also previously said that this year would be the last chance for amnesty legislation. 

Schumer’s remarks come days after House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who just recently released the GOP leadership’s “immigration principles,” claimed–in a move his critics have alleged could be a head fake–that Republicans would not move forward on immigration reform until Obama proves that he can be trusted on enforcement issues.