WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to unlatch a gateway to citizenship for young Dreamers and immigrants who have fled war or natural disasters abroad, giving Democrats a win in the year’s first vote on an issue that once again faces a steep uphill climb in Congress.

On a near party-line 228-197 vote, with 9 Republicans joining Democrats in supporting the measure, lawmakers approved the American Dream and Promise Act, a bill offering legal status to around 2 million Dreamers, brought to the U.S. illegally as children, and hundreds of thousands of other migrants from a dozen troubled countries.

Passage seemed imminent for a second measure creating similar protections for 1 million farm workers who have worked in the U.S. illegally; the government estimates they comprise half the nation’s agricultural laborers.

Both bills hit a wall of opposition from Republicans insistent that any immigration legislation bolster security at the Mexican border, which waves of migrants have tried breaching in recent weeks. The GOP has accused congressional Democrats of ignoring that problem and President Joe Biden of fueling it by erasing former President Donald Trump’s restrictive policies, even though that surge began while Trump was still in office.

The House bills’ prospects were gloomy in the evenly split Senate, where the 50 Democrats will need at least 10 GOP supporters to break Republican filibusters. The outlook was even grimmer for Biden’s more ambitious goal of legislation making citizenship possible for all 11 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally, easing visa restrictions, improving border security technology and spending billions in Central America to ease problems that prompt people to leave.

Congress has deadlocked over immigration for years, and it once again seemed headed toward becoming political ammunition. Republicans could use it to rally conservative voters in upcoming elections, while Democrats could add it to a stack of House-passed measures languishing in the Senate to build support for abolishing that chamber’s bill-killing filibusters.

Democrats said their bills were aimed not at border security but at addressing groups of immigrants who deserve to be helped.

“They’re so much of our country,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said of Dreamers, who like many immigrants have held frontline jobs during the pandemic. “These immigrant communities strengthen, enrich and ennoble our nation, and they must be allowed to stay.”

Neither House measure would directly affect those trying to cross the boundary from Mexico. Republicans criticized them anyway for lacking border security provisions and turned the debate into an opportunity to lambast Biden, who’s ridden a wave of popularity since taking office and winning a massive COVID-19 relief package.

“It is a Biden border crisis, and it is spinning out of control,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

While the number of migrants caught trying to cross the border from Mexico has been rising since April, the 100,441 encountered last month was the highest figure since March 2019. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said the number is tracking toward a 20-year high.

Democrats were making that problem worse, Republicans said, with bills they said entice smugglers to sneak more immigrants into the U.S. and provide amnesty to immigrants who break laws to enter and live in the country.

“We don’t know who these people are, we don’t know what their intentions are,” Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) said of immigrant farm workers who might seek legal status. He added, “It’s frightening, it’s irresponsible, it’s endangering American lives.”

During earlier debate on the Dreamers’ bill, Democrats said Republicans were going too far.

“Sometimes I stand in this chamber and I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone, listening to a number of my Republican colleagues espouse white supremacist ideology to denigrate our Dreamers,” said Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY).

The House approved similar versions of the Dreamer and farm worker bills in 2019. Seven Republicans voted for the “Dreamers” bill and 34 backed the farm workers measure that year.

Both 2019 measures died in what was a Republican-run Senate. Neither would have received the signature of Donald Trump, who spent his four years as president constricting legal and illegal immigration.

In contrast, Biden has suspended work on Trump’s wall along the Mexican border, ended his separation of young children from migrant families and allowed apprehended minors to stay in the U.S. as officials decide if they can legally remain. He has also turned away most single adults and families.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that Biden supports both bills as “critical milestones toward much needed relief for the millions of individuals who call the United States home.”

The “Dreamer” bill would grant conditional legal status for 10 years to many immigrants up to age 18 who were brought into the U.S. illegally before this year. They’d have to graduate from high school or have equivalent educational credentials, not have serious criminal records and meet other conditions.

To attain legal permanent residence, often called a green card, they’d have to obtain a higher education degree, serve in the military or be employed for at least three years. Like all others with green cards, they could then apply for citizenship after five years.

The measure would also grant green cards to an estimated 400,000 immigrants with temporary protected status, which allows temporary residence to people who have fled violence or natural disasters in a dozen countries.

The Biden administration issued a statement in support of the measure before the vote, calling it a "critical milestone toward much-needed relief for the millions of undocumented individuals who call the United States home."

"Dreamers and TPS recipients are over-represented as essential workers and are helping to keep our economy and communities afloat during a global pandemic," the statement continued. "Yet, these individuals continue to live in a state of precariousness and fear. Ensuring that Dreamers and TPS recipients have a clear path to citizenship would deliver much needed economic security and stability to millions of people who currently face perpetual uncertainty and vulnerability as a result of their immigration status."

The House also passed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act in a more bipartisan 247-174 vote – the bill would protect undocumented farmworkers who meet certain requirements from being deported and also provide them with a path to residence.

The Biden administration also signaled support for this measure ahead of the vote, calling it "critically important" to the food and agriculture industries in the U.S., and that "with legal status and a path to citizenship, farmworkers would be able to earn higher wages and exercise their rights under our labor laws to demand better working conditions."

The administration also urged Congress to "reform other aspects of our immigration system by passing the U.S. Citizenship Act, which would provide a path to citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants, establish a new system to responsibly manage and secure our border, bring long overdue visa reforms to keep families together and grow our economy, and address the root causes of instability and unsafe conditions causing migration from Central America."

Both measures are generally popular and versions of them passed the House during the last Congress.

But their consideration comes at a time when the polarizing issue of immigration has polarized further in a matter of weeks, as the US faces a surge in migrants trying to cross the southwest border.

Border officers encountered more than 100,000 migrants at the border in February, President Biden’s first full month in office. While officials are still turning away the majority of border crossers — adults and families — the administration has begun letting in unaccompanied children, leading to overcrowded facilities and assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Both Democrats and Republicans acknowledge that the two narrower immigration bills on the House floor this week are at most an initial step toward a broader reform bill.

“These two bills are not the fix, but they are a fix to part of the problem,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said on a call with reporters Tuesday. “We need to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and we're going to do so in the coming months.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — who co-introduced the DREAM Act in the Senate last month to extend protections for immigrants brought to the US as children — called his bill a “starting point” for “bipartisan breakthroughs” and larger reform.

“I do not believe this legislation will pass and be signed into law as a stand-alone measure,” Graham said in a statement issued in February.

But as the situation at the border intensified this week, Graham changed his tune.

“We're not going to do a comprehensive immigration bill," Graham told CNN. "I just don't see the politics of it. It's too out of control."

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), a longtime leader on immigration and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also recognized that a comprehensive bill is unlikely right away.

“They're supposed to take up the DREAM Act, farm labor, and we'll receive both of them at the Judiciary Committee,” Durbin told reporters on Capitol Hill. “Then I have to sit down with my colleagues and just see if there's any bipartisan consensus for moving that bill with those two as the starting points.”

Both Republicans and immigration advocates have noted that President Biden’s initial immigration proposal — the wide-ranging US Citizenship Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants — is at least partly symbolic.

“I think this one is really, really important for the message that it sends,” said Jessica Bolter, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. 

“President Obama had promised to prioritize immigration reform and legalization and really decided not to act immediately,” she added. “ I think that the Biden administration is clearly trying not to make the same mistakes.”

Republicans say it sends the wrong message given the number of migrants who have trekked to the border since Biden took office.

Administration officials said they are addressing the surge with a “government-wide effort” while they work to make the system more humane. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — who will testify before a House panel on Wednesday — said Tuesday that the US is “on pace” to see more people at the border than it has in 20 years.

Meanwhile, Democrats are committed to passing comprehensive immigration reform while they still have the upper hand in Congress.

“We’ll keep fighting to get as bold and strong a bill as we can,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Tuesday.

Asked whether Democrats would push reform through the budget reconciliation process to skip the need for Republican support, Schumer said that “everything’s on the table.”

Spectrum News' Austin Landis contributed to this report.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.