Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), one of the lawmakers who brokered the Senate immigration bill, on Sunday proposed a new idea for getting Republican leaders on board with passing immigration reform this year.
“Let’s enact the law this year, but simply not let it actually start until 2017, after President Obama’s term is over,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Now I think the rap against him that he won’t enforce the law is false — he’s deported more people than any other president — but you could actually have the law start in 2017 without doing much violence to it.”
Republicans over the past few weeks have increasingly expressed hesitation about passing immigration reform this year because they do no trust President Obama to enforce the law well, particularly when it comes to border security. And GOP leaders this week signaled that they were putting immigration reform on hold.
Schumer said that distrust in President Obama is likely the only issue holding the GOP back.
“It’s been a tough week for immigration,” he said. “But all three, many of the Republicans have said the following — Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, even Jim DeMint — they have said that they want to do immigration reform, but they don’t trust the President to enforce the law, particularly the enforcement parts. So there’s a simple solution.”
Schumer said that Congress needs to pass immigration reform in 2014, because 2015 or 2016 will be too close to the presidential primaries for Republicans to support a bill.
Watch the video via NBC:
