House Cancels Vote on Emergency Supplemental for Southern Border

House Republican leaders have cancelled a final vote on a emergency funding supplemental bill, one that would have provided $659 million to address the tide of unaccompanied immigrant children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border seeking refuge from violence in Central America.

House rank-and-file lawmakers earlier Thursday approved a rule governing debate on the underlying bill, but a vote scheduled for early afternoon was postponed, and later cancelled. In a statement issued after debate, House GOP leaders said they worried President Obama wouldn't enforce legal changes mandated in the legislation.

The bill would have provided far lower than the $3.7 billion President Obama sought to deal with the border, and it doesn't include money for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system or to fight western U.S. wildfires included in a Senate bill introduced by Senate Appropriations Chair Barbara Mikulski (D-MD).

House Appropriations Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-NY) noted the disparity as she debated panel chairman Harold Rogers (R-KY) on the bill earlier Thursday.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said in a Thursday news conference that the House would not "accept it back from the Senate in any fashion."

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Republican-authored legal changes in the legislation weren't welcome at Thursday's White House press conference.