New York Democratic senator Chuck Schumer, an author of the Senate immigration bill, may have succeeded in helping Republicans kill his own bill.

On Meet the Press Sunday, Schumer said that Republicans “don’t trust the president to enforce the law, particularly the enforcement parts.” So, he explained, “There’s a simple solution. Let’s enact the law this year, but simply not let it actually start ‘til 2017 after President Obama’s term is over. But you could actually have the law start in 2017 without doing much violence to it. You’d simply move the date back from December, 31 2011 to December 31, 2013, as to when the deadline for people who could get either legalization or citizenship [is], so we could go after the new people who come in later. And it would solve the problem. … You don’t trust Obama? Enact the law now, put it into effect in 2017.”