Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., arrives at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, May 18, 2018, as the conservative House Freedom Caucus threatens to hold up a final vote on the farm bill. Passage of the farm bill is a priority for GOP leaders, who are eager to pitch to voters its tougher work requirements for food stamps, a party priority that polls well with voters. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., arrives at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, May 18, 2018, as the conservative House Freedom Caucus threatens to hold up a final vote on the farm bill. Passage of the farm bill is a priority for GOP leaders, who are eager to pitch to voters its tougher work requirements for food stamps, a party priority that polls well with voters. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

Washington — Simmering House GOP divisions over immigration burst into the open on Friday as conservatives took out their frustrations with Republican leaders by voting down an unrelated major farm-policy bill.

The dramatic failure demonstrated the turmoil inside the Republican Party as President Donald Trump and his allies push the GOP toward a more hard-line stance on immigration. It also represented a major blow for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and other Republican leaders, who were caught in the middle between two warring GOP factions.

The farm bill had nothing to do with immigration, but House conservatives used it to try to regain leverage that they had been losing behind the scenes as party centrists worked to force a vote on a bill that would legalize young undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children.

In return for a solution for these immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” conservatives are pushing to fund Trump’s signature campaign promise of a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and outlaw “sanctuary cities.” Anything less, they say, would represent a betrayal of the GOP base ahead of this year’s midterm elections. The moderate Republicans, most representing districts with competitive races in the fall, have embraced compromise with Democrats and have been employing a rarely used legislative maneuver to force a vote.

Just four years ago, Ryan and other party leaders were advocating a softer line on immigration as part of a push to woo Hispanic voters — but Trump’s victory has changed that calculation. Now conservatives are dead set against compromising with Democrats to get the 218 votes needed to pass an immigration bill.

“That path to 218 disavows what the last election was about and what the majority of the American people want,” said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, “and the people in this body know it.”

Since the launch of his 2016 campaign, Trump has returned again and again to the idea of cracking down on illegal immigration and to his promise of a border wall. Ryan has said he does not want to put an immigration bill on the floor that does not have the president’s support, but it has been unclear what that would require.

Privately, White House officials are pessimistic about the prospect for an immigration deal to emerge. Trump also remains frustrated that his border wall has not gotten funded at the levels he desires, and in an effort to make progress on that front the White House plans to increase its wall funding request for the 2019 budget year from $1.6 billion to $2.5 billion, according to two officials knowledgeable about the situation.

The outcome of the congressional debate on immigration will also reverberate in the race to replace Ryan, who is retiring from Congress at the end of this year. Ryan’s top two lieutenants — Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., — both must maintain support from conservatives in the caucus if they hope to rise in leadership.

Centrist Republicans have been attempting to force a vote on legislation that would ultimately grant citizenship to immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children and protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

But House GOP hard-liners fear that process could allow such a bill to pass the chamber, with votes from Democrats and a minority of Republicans. They want a stand-alone vote on a conservative immigration bill that is expected to fail but would kill that effort.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said the group decided to withhold votes for the high-profile farm bill after determining it was “not fully clear” how immigration legislation would be considered on the House floor next month.

For their part, the centrist Republicans expressed guarded optimism over leadership’s agreement to hold votes on immigration next month, although numerous details remain to be determined.

“We’ve agreed on a framework. We’ve not agreed on the contents of a bill,” said Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., a leader of the moderate effort.

Bipartisan legislation probably has enough votes to pass the chamber — but only with significant Democratic support. And any immigration debate in the House is certain to divide the GOP against itself, leaving one side or the other bitter and dissatisfied no matter the outcome.

The process under consideration would ensure a vote on a conservative immigration bill from Reps. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, while also allowing moderate Republicans the opportunity to negotiate on legislation that could win the support of Trump and resolve the status of DACA recipients.

The farm bill that the House was voting on Friday was probably doomed in the Senate anyway, because of lack of support in that chamber for tough new work requirements for food-stamp recipients. The Senate is writing its own, bipartisan farm bill that the House ultimately may have to agree to in the end if anything is to reach Trump’s desk.