Reps. Filemon Vela (pictured) and Vicente Gonzalez announced they will sign onto a discharge petition being circulated by backers of the DACA. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Two Democratic holdouts to sign DACA discharge petition

Two Democratic holdouts have signaled their support for an immigration vote on the House floor, bringing supporters within three signatures of the needed 218 to trigger a showdown over the fate of hundreds of thousands of Dreamers.

Texas Democratic Reps. Filemon Vela and Vicente Gonzalez announced on Tuesday they will sign onto a discharge petition being circulated by backers of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, an Obama-era initiative canceled by President Donald Trump last year.


"By signing this discharge petition, I do so with the intent of giving 800,000 young people — young Americans — peace of mind and the ability to remain in the only country they call home," Gonzalez and Vela said in a joint statement.

Moderate Republicans who support DACA, led by Reps. Carlos Curbelo (Fla.), Will Hurd (Texas) and Jeff Denham (Calif.), unveiled a discharge petition last month that would set up floor votes on four immigration proposals. Under the procedural maneuver, the plan with the most votes over 218 would pass.

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With nearly two dozen Republicans having already signed onto the petition — in a direct challenge to Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) — House GOP leaders have been scrambling behind the scenes to prevent more of their rank-and-file members from backing the initiative.

GOP lawmakers will hold a closed-door meeting on Thursday to try to resolve the intra-party dispute. Ryan and other party leaders will meet with pro and anti-DACA Republicans on Wednesday, GOP aides said.

In an interview on Tuesday, Vela said he and Gonzalez changed their minds after spending a week back home in districts that both touch the U.S.-Mexico border. In addition to hearing from Dreamers and their families, both men saw the impact of Trump’s decision to separate families crossing the border up close.

“Vince and I decided that it’s not easy because I still don’t like the process but taking it all in balance, we made the joint decision to sign the discharge petition,” Vela said.

“At the end of the day, our decisions are driven by our local politics and this was a very important issue to the people I talked to here over the last week and that’s what drove my decision,” Vela added, noting he got zero outside pressure from Democratic leadership to sign the petition.

The Texas Democrat said he plans to formally sign onto the discharge petition as soon as he gets back to Washington but noted his flight back from the Lone Star State was just canceled and he may miss Tuesday evening votes.

One more Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas), has yet to sign the petition, but multiple Democratic sources said they think he could change his mind if he’s the lone holdout. A spokeswoman for Cuellar did not return a request for comment.

Even if Cuellar ultimately signs on, two more Republicans will still be needed to reach the required 218 signatures. One source with knowledge of the negotiations said Republican DACA supporters were targeting Reps. Daniel Newhouse (R-Wash.) and Dennis Ross (R-Fla.), who is retiring, as the final two signees.