Two House Democrats on Thursday pointed fingers at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for the cancellation of the vote on the GOP border bill, which has delayed the start of the five-week-long August recess.
House Republican leaders pulled the $656 million bill after they were unable to attract enough votes from conservative members of their caucus.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) suggested in a tweet afterward that Cruz is responsible for the divide in GOP support on the bill.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) later tweeted a rhyme that said the “rest of the day is up to Ted Cruz.”
A group of House conservatives met with Cruz on Wednesday night, and afterwards said they would oppose the GOP border bill unless it ended President Obama’s deferred deportation program.
Without that provision, Cruz argued the bill wouldn’t reduce the influx of unaccompanied children entering the United States illegally from Central America. The border bill would also speed up processing and deportation, deploy National Guard troops to the border and increase the number of immigration judges handling asylum requests.
Lawmakers were scheduled to leave Washington for the annual August recess Thursday afternoon, but Republicans decided they would meet again on Friday morning after a vote on the border bill was canceled.