Action Sports with Leigh Roche

Struggling to attract support for their legislation to address the crisis at the border, House Republicans are considering a vote on legislation that would ban the Obama administration from deferring deportations for young undocumented immigrants.

The surprise move, described by multiple GOP aides Wednesday evening, comes as House Republicans were unable to lock up 218 GOP lawmakers to vote for the $659 million emergency funding package.

GOP leadership is likely to allow two votes: One on banning President Barack Obama from implementing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA; another on the emergency funding bill.

Two strategies are under consideration: one tactic would merge the two bills together if they both pass, and send the package to the Senate. Or the GOP would simply send both bills separately to the Senate.

(Also on POLITICO: House votes to sue Obama)

The Senate, meanwhile, is struggling to pass its border legislation. It scrambled to clear even just a simple procedural vote earlier Wednesday, and the funding measure drafted by Senate Democrats has already lost the support of three of its own members.

If the GOP lumps the the two bills together, it would likely sap most of the Democratic support the original package might have had. The Democratic numbers were already few — among them was Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, who said Wednesday that he believed a 2008 anti-trafficking law that has come under close scrutiny during the border crisis needs to be revised.

Still, an overwhelming majority of House Democrats were expected to reject the House Republicans’ border supplemental if it had come to the floor for a vote Thursday.

“This is what happens when you wait more than 380 days to pass a bipartisan bill to fix the broken immigration system,” House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) said when told of the news Wednesday evening.

“Republicans have now boxed themselves into a trap where they are now having a fight between their far right and their far, far right,” he continued. “And as a result, they can’t get anything done and the shutdown, do-nothing politics has come back to bite them.”

Time is of the essence. The House will leave town Thursday afternoon for a month-long August recess.

The struggles come as Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise makes his debut in the House Republican leadership. Although Scalise doesn’t officially become whip until Thursday, he has been involved in trying to build support for this legislation, and his allies have discussed how his tactics were better than Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is the outgoing whip and incoming majority leader.

New York Rep. Louise Slaughter, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, hinted at some troubles Wednesday evening when she told reporters that the “last thing I heard as I left the floor is that they have no agreement, whatever.”

Legislation must clear the Rules panel before it can come to the House floor.

“As a matter of fact, it’s a bit troubled piece of legislation,” she said. “We may be here most of the night trying to come to some conclusion thereon.”

Republicans have largely pointed to the deportation directive from Obama — announced in June 2012, in the middle of his reelection bid — as the culprit behind the stunning influx of unaccompanied minors arriving at the Southwestern border this year. They believe it sends a message that if the migrant children come, they will be accepted legally into the United States — although DACA requires that undocumented immigrants have entered the United States before June 15, 2007.

In fiscal 2013, which began Oct. 1, 2012, nearly 28,000 unaccompanied minors were apprehended at the Southern border, and that figure has jumped to more than 57,000 during this fiscal year.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had demanded a ban on expanding DACA in exchange for emergency funding to deal with the border crisis. He criticized the House Republican proposal in a statement earlier this week because it did not include language dealing with what Cruz called “Obama’s amnesty.”

And a vote targeting the deferred action program, popular with Latinos, could put in a tough position Republican lawmakers who are running in races where the Hispanic vote could play a pivotal role.

The Republican-led House voted on a similar measure last year — an amendment that would defund DACA as part of the spending bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security. Six House Republicans voted against that measure — Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Spencer Bachus of Alabama, Michael Grimm of New York, and Devin Nunes, Jeff Denham and David Valadao, all of California....