Schumer hosts Huntington Station man with heavy student debt at State of the Union

WASHINGTON — Hofstra University graduate Imran Ansari remains on the hook for about $20,000 in student debt but thanks to President Joe Biden’s extensions of the moratorium on payments he has been able to buy a home and start a family.

“It’s been life changing for me,” said Ansari, 31, of Huntington Station, political director of the Long Island Federation of Labor, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s guest for the State of the Union address that Biden will deliver Tuesday night.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, has long been an advocate for canceling student debt, and he chose Ansari because his debt is close to the median $19,000 debt for New York student borrowers, who some experts say include as many as 2.5 million New York residents.

Most Republicans and some Democrats oppose Biden’s order pausing student debt payments, and several Republican-led states have challenged it in federal court. Biden’s administration has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in.

Like Schumer, many legislators in Congress make political statements in their choice of their guests, but others invite friends or family members.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the upstate Democrat facing reelection in 2024, invited Mario Cilento, president of the New York State AFL-CIO, as her guest. In her announcement, Gillibrand promised to work with him to advance comprehensive labor legislation.

Cilento praised Gillibrand’s work on behalf of all the responders who risked their health at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks.

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) will bring his wife Kaylie to the State of the Union while Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (D-Island Park) invited his brother Tim.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) invited his father, William Garbarino.

Even the scandal-scarred Rep. George Santos found someone willing to accept his invitation: Attorney Michael Weinstock, a Democrat who lost a primary against then Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) in 2020, the same year that Suozzi won reelection in the general election against Santos running as a Republican in his first campaign.

When he was running for Congress, Weinstock said he worked as a volunteer firefighter at Ground Zero in Manhattan on 9/11.

The president of his former fire company told the Great Neck Record in 2019 that his company had no record of Weinstock's responding to the site of the terrorist attack.

The Island 360, a North Shore news publication, quoted two former firefighters in 2019 who recalled working with Weinstock at Ground Zero. Weinstock has provided news outlets with photos of him volunteering at Ground Zero.

According to a news release from Santos' office, Weinstock later was diagnosed with neuropathy, a nerve disorder.

Weinstock told Newsday on Monday, “I’m attending the State of the Union to bring attention to the subject of firefighters with neuropathy or rescue workers who don't have health care.”

Weinstock has a GoFundMe page to help cover his medical costs that he said his fiancé had created for him after he turned down Santos’ offer to set it up. The fund has raised $7,195 so far.

With Scott Eidler and Laura Figueroa Hernandez