Fact Check: Did Senator Chuck Schumer Say “Our Ultimate Goal” Is to Grant Citizenship to Undocumented Immigrants?
Claim: U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stated that “our ultimate goal” is to provide a pathway to citizenship for migrants who have crossed the U.S. border.
Rating: Correctly Attributed (with missing context)
Context
Social media users recently began circulating video clips and quotes of U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declaring that “our ultimate goal” is to secure citizenship for undocumented immigrants. However, these posts omitted a crucial detail: the remarks were made nearly four years ago.
Several accounts shared the footage or text out of context, framing the statement as a “breaking” news development or implying that Schumer had just made the remark.
Background on the Remarks
The clips stem from a November 16, 2022, press conference held outside the U.S. Capitol. During the event, Senate Democrats made a late push during a lame-duck congressional session to pass protections for “Dreamers”—individuals covered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy.
Surrounded by supporters, Schumer spoke directly about the need to protect these immigrants and address broader workforce shortages:
“Now more than ever, we’re short of workers. We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants, the ‘Dreamers’ and all of them, because our ultimate goal is to help the ‘Dreamers’ but get a path to citizenship for all 11 million or however many undocumented there are here.”
What the Record Shows
Schumer did, in fact, make these statements in November 2022 while urging Congress to act on immigration reform before the start of a new legislative term. Online users sharing the clips simply stripped away the timeline, presenting an archived statement as a current event.
Ultimately, the bipartisan immigration discussions and pushes for DACA pathways failed to secure the necessary 60 votes before the end of that congressional session.