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Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Representative Luis Gutierrez discuss the history of immigration and impact of it on Chicago in Washington D.C.

Emanuel, who was President Barack Obamas first chief of staff, said the president would take executive action if the House did not pass a bill.

Gutierrez, a champion of immigration reform, said he was encouraged by this weeks primary win by Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., who is among Republicans who favor immigration reform and who beat back a challenge from the right.

Gutierrez said 2,000 Latino citizens in the U.S. turn 18 every day and they turn 18 angry at a particular party because of how it treats them as a community of people.

He said he and allies were helping people become citizens and registering them to vote. More than 70 percent of Latino-Americans and more than 70 percent of Asian Americans voted for Obama, he said.

The House now has 233 Republicans and 199 Democrats. Gutierrez predicted that 25 to 30 Republicans would join Democrats in support of comprehensive legislation. The Republican Party understands that its future as a national party, as a national party that can really win national elections, is at stake here, Gutierrez said.

Yet observers think the prospects of House passage are dwindling as mid-term elections approach in November. The Democratic-led Senate passed immigration reform legislation last year.

During the Urban Institute appearance, Emanuel lauded Chicagos embrace of immigrants. He noted that his grandfather left Moldova, near Romania, in 1917 when he was 13 years old in order to get away from anti-Jewish pogroms.

The mayor said Chicagos Mexican-American population is equal to that of the fifth largest city in Mexico, and no city outside of Warsaw has more Polish people than Chicago.

He singled out the 2012 visit by Nobel Peace Prize winners to Frederick Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center, a Chicago public school that he said was predominantly Jewish when his mother studied there.

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Emanuel, Gutierrez expect immigration reform this year