The US House of Representatives has approved a $4.5 billion aid package to address the migrant surge along the US-Mexico border, including new accommodation standards for migrants in custody.
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The Democratic-led House voted 230-195, mostly along party lines, to pass the measure, but its future is uncertain.
President Donald Trump has vowed to veto the House legislation, with White House officials saying it would hamstring the administration's border enforcement efforts.
Last week, lawyers raised alarm about more than 300 migrant children in an overcrowded Texas patrol station, being held in squalid conditions without adequate food and water.
Amid the ensuing outcry, the acting commissioner of the US Customs and Border Protection agency, John Sanders, resigned on Tuesday.
Democrats emphasised on Tuesday that while they were approving the border aid to address the humanitarian crisis, they were not ratifying the Trump administration's attempts to restrict and discourage immigration.
The House legislation would also reinstate hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras that was cut off by the Trump administration.
The same provisions that helped win over progressive Democrats were denounced by House Republicans as "poison pills."
The House bill is a sham that "does not help our overstretched law enforcement authorities," said House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.
Australian Associated Press
