House passes $694 million border bill

By Deirdre Walsh, CNN

Washington (CNN) -- In a late night vote after a bitterly partisan debate, the House of Representatives passed a $694 million border bill Friday, but the measure has no chance of becoming law.

The vote was almost entirely on party lines, 223- 189, with just one Democrat, Texas Rep Henry Cuellar, voting for it. Four Republicans opposed the legislation.

The Democratic-led Senate had already left Washington to start a five week summer recess after it was unable to pass its own legislation to give the President some of the money he's requested to address the massive influx of migrants at the southwest border.

At a news conference Friday, President Barack Obama dismissed the House GOP measure as "a message bill" and vowed to veto if it came across his desk.

The vote came one day after a chaotic scene on Capitol Hill when House Speaker John Boehner was forced to abruptly pull an earlier version of the bill because it didn't have sufficient votes to pass. 

Some conservatives didn't like the price tag of the legislation and others demanded tougher restrictions on a separate bill that would halt future deportations of some child immigrants who arrived years earlier.

House GOP leaders had already agreed to hold a separate vote on that measure, modeled on a plan from conservative Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz, which would prevent Obama from continuing his policy known as "DACA." Under DACA, the administration can defer deportations of children brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents.

But conservatives wanted to end that policy, fearing that the President would use his executive authority to expand deportation deferments.

After a late night of negotiations on Thursday, GOP leaders agreed to the demand.

The House passed that bill Friday, 216-192, after a heated and ugly floor debate. Democrats accused the GOP of being "anti-Hispanic" and "extreme" -- a message the party will certainly repeat over and over before the midterm elections.

Brushing off the accusations that both bills were just political theater, House Republicans worked all day to lock down the votes from their members. They believed passing legislation right before they left for the break would flip the narrative -- instead of being the party that did nothing, they could claim they stayed and approved a plan while the Democrats who run the Senate left town without any action on the issue.

"The people's House is here working and we're not going to stop working until we pass legislation that actually addresses this crisis," Louisiana Republican Rep Steve Scalise said.

House Democrats said the Republicans would only make the situation worse.

Rep Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois, warned the House Republicans legislation would cause the 600,000 so-called "Dreamers' to be deported and said, "Republicans want to kill DACA and kill it quietly on a Friday night."

But Rep Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, said that the President's move "to use his pen and cell phone to legislate" and allow children stay in the country violated the Constitution because it was up to Congress to pass new laws.

An additional $35 million was added to the bill to reimburse the state of Texas for deploying its National Guard troops to the border. The measure that passed Friday also included a change to a 2008 anti-trafficking law to make it easier to send home the unaccompanied children from Central American countries.

Republicans criticized Obama for sending mixed messages to Congress on modifying that law. The President and some in his administration indicated they could support a bill to expedite deportations of children coming from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, but then backed off after Congressional Democrats strongly opposed linking that with additional border money.

Without any agreement on additional resources to address the border crisis, Obama said Friday, "we've run out of money."

Three weeks ago, Obama had asked Congress for $3.7 billion in emergency funds to help process the unaccompanied children at the border and boost border security. The Senate Democrats' plan called for $2.7 billion, but it failed to advance.

The President said Friday he would reallocate money to ensure federal agencies providing housing or holding immigration hearings could continue to handle the increased activity along the border in Texas.