THE U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday soundly rejected a wide-ranging GOP immigration bill that would have funded President Trump’s border wall, offered young undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship and partially addressed the family-separation crisis at the southwest border.

The bill failed on a vote of 301 to 121 despite a last-minute tweet — in all-capital letters — of support from Trump, the backing of GOP leadership and weeks of negotiations between conservatives and moderate Republicans who sought an elusive intraparty compromise.

But the GOP has been unable to bridge the divide between hard-liners aligned with Trump and moderates intent on addressing the fate of immigrants known as “dreamers.”

Highlighting the GOP’s failure to achieve consensus on any immigration-related legislation, Republican aides said the House would not vote this week on a narrower measure aimed squarely at the separation policy, thanks to disputes between Congress and the White House on how far such a bill should go.

Lawmakers will leave for a 10-day Fourth of July recess taking no action amid an uproar over the separation policy and images of migrant children housed in metal cages.

Republican leaders struggled to rally support for the broader bill, postponing a vote twice in the face of internal opposition and uncertain support from Trump. No Democrat supported the bill, which in addition to funding the border wall rolled back legal immigration pathways favored by most Democrats.

The 11th-hour tweet from Trump urged lawmakers to “show that we want strong borders & security” by passing the bill. That message stood in stark contrast to a tweet he sent last Friday in which he said Republicans “should stop wasting their time” on immigration until after the midterm elections, when, he predicted, more GOP lawmakers would be elected.

(SD-Agencies)