Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in 2013 “it would be governmental chaos” if the Democrats shut down the government in order to give amnesty to illegal aliens.

During an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Schumer mocked the idea that Democrats would ever try to shut down the federal government unless millions of illegal aliens were given amnesty.

SCHUMER: Speaker [John] Boehner comes in and he says basically… it’s sort of like this: Someone goes into your house, takes your wife and children hostage and then says ‘Let’s negotiate over the price of your house.’ You know we could do the same thing on immigration. We believe strongly in immigration reform. We could say ‘We’re shutting down the government. We’re not going to raise the debt ceiling until you pass immigration reform.’ It would be governmental chaos. [Emphasis added]

The plan to shut down the federal government unless illegal aliens are given amnesty, though, is now being championed by Schumer and Democrats, who say they want to see the nearly 800,000 illegal aliens shielded from deportation by the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program given amnesty to remain permanently in the U.S. in exchange for their support on a government funding bill.

In an expansive amnesty plan that the Republican establishment and Democrats want to see passed, some 3.5 million illegal aliens who are enrolled and eligible for DACA would be granted amnesty, as well as their parents who brought them to the U.S. illegally.

Additionally, the plan by Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) would:

Make no cuts to legal immigration levels, whereby more than one million legal immigrants enter the U.S. every year

Transfers the 50,000 visas through the Diversity Visa Lottery into two other visa categories

Does not fund the estimated $18 billion U.S.-Mexico border wall

Does not mandate E-Verify to bar employers from hiring illegal aliens over American workers

As Breitbart News reported, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen have slammed the amnesty plan as “totally unjustifiable,” while populist conservative Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said the amnesty should be thrown “straight into the trash can,” as Breitbart News reported.