Updated at 2:20 p.m.: Revised to include additional reaction to the vote.

WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday failed to override President Donald Trump's veto of a resolution that would block his border emergency declaration, clearing one major obstacle in the Republican's quest for a wall at the U.S.-Mexico line.

Every Democrat in the House was joined by 14 Republicans in rebuking Trump, but those 248 votes were well short of the two-thirds majority needed to overturn the veto.

San Antonio Rep. Will Hurd was the only Texas Republican among those crossing the commander-in-chief, replaying the result from last month on the initial House vote over the "resolution of disapproval" authored by Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio.

The latest action ended weeks of congressional maneuvering against Trump's emergency declaration, leaving it to the courts to settle the fight over the president's power play.

Trump and his GOP allies hailed the outcome as a necessary step toward securing America's southern border, particularly as apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico line have spiked amid the continued flow of Central American families entering the U.S. to seek asylum.

"The uptick in the border crossings in the last few months is really concerning," said Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Coppell, explaining that the influx of family groups puts a "real strain on our social system."

But Democrats lamented the failure to block Trump's executive action, which bypasses Congress to divert billions of dollars to a border wall from accounts related to military construction.

They cast the border wall as an outmoded waste, noting that border apprehensions remain well below historic highs. They fretted about the impact to military readiness. They warned that a dangerous precedent had been set, further eroding the constitutional separation of powers.

"What we have here is an act of constitutional vandalism," Castro said, stressing that "there's not an emergency of the sort that the president speaks of." "Even those who support a wall should agree with us that this is not the way to do this."

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said President Donald Trump's national emergency declaration at the U.S.-Mexico border is an "act of constitutional vandalism.". (Andrew Harnik / The Associated Press)

The result had been likely ever since Trump last month invoked the National Emergencies Act of 1976.

The president was displeased that Republican and Democratic negotiators had reached a deal to give him only $1.4 billion for border fencing, even though the compromise averted a reprise of the record-setting federal government shutdown that ended in late January.

Trump sought to free up $6 billion in additional border wall funding, with an emergency declaration providing the outlet to tap military construction funds for more than $3.5 billion of that total.

"This will help stop Crime, Human Trafficking, and Drugs entering our Country," the president recently wrote on Twitter, hailing the border wall as "desperately needed."

While Trump has stressed that he is acting well within his legal authority to respond to a growing crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, the end run is just the kind of expansive executive action that lawmakers — and Republicans, in particular — have bemoaned for years.

President Donald Trump has said a border wall is "desperately needed." (Michael Reynolds / Getty Images)

So Democrats, already dismissive of Trump's border wall, jumped into action.

Castro introduced the "resolution of disapproval" to block the president's emergency declaration, providing a high-profile moment for the Democrat whose twin brother, Julián, is running for president and who himself is considering a Senate bid against Texas Sen. John Cornyn.

The measure last month passed the House 245-182, with only Hurd and a smattering of other Republicans jumping party lines to reprove Trump.

Hurd, the only Texas Republican to defect, explained at the time that he agreed there was a "problem at our border." But he said it "will not help" to fund a border wall by "possibly taking money" from vital military bases in Texas and beyond.

The initial House vote was not close to being veto-proof. But the measure nevertheless proceeded to the Senate, where 12 GOP senators this month bucked the president to make the vote 59-41 — again, not veto-proof — in support of the "resolution of disapproval."

Neither Cornyn nor Texas Sen. Ted Cruz crossed Trump.

"Make no mistake: An emergency absolutely exists on the border, and it is a national and humanitarian disaster," Cruz said, while also expressing worry about potential abuse of national emergency declarations to circumvent Congress.

Trump then issued the first veto of his presidency, setting the stage for Tuesday's vote.

Democrats continued to make the broader case that Trump's emergency declaration was unnecessary, with some Texans ripping the president's efforts to build a border wall as an unprecedented land grab that would have a negative impact all across the Lone Star State.

"It would hurt us in a very big way if we created any kind of wall, barrier, fence, whatever you want to call it," said Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston. "The whole thing has been a lot of waste of time and taxpayer dollars."

But Trump's critics also homed in on the potential effects on the military, particularly after the Marine Corps commandant highlighted a growing risk to combat readiness.

The Pentagon also recently released a list of military construction projects that could be hit by the emergency declaration, with some $265 million threatened at Texas bases including Fort Bliss in El Paso, Fort Hood in Killeen and Joint Base San Antonio.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, said she was disappointed that Fort Bliss and other Texas installations might bear the burden of Trump's border emergency.

"It's such a terrible irony that the very community the president has made ground zero for his cruel immigration policies will be the same community that suffers at the hands of this emergency declaration," said Escobar, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

But Republicans played down that line of attack, countering that Trump has been forced to act by Congress' inaction on border security.

Rep. Roger Williams, R-Austin, had initially expressed concern about the potential impact at Fort Hood, which sits in his district. But he said he received assurances that existing construction would not be affected, leaving alone key projects to build barracks, runways and other assets.

Beyond that, he said, "we have a real problem at the border."

"It's a really serious crisis," he said. "Being from Texas, I know what I'm talking about."

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, echoed that point.

"To those who still deny that there is a humanitarian crisis, I say look no further than Texas," he said. "We pay the ultimate price for a porous border — and we've been paying it for too long."