WASHINGTON — Republicans with moderate views on immigration defied party leaders and took steps Wednesday toward forcing campaign-season House votes on the issue. One top maverick said they had enough support to succeed.

The effort meant that a congressional drive to help young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children that seemed to have lost steam earlier this year could be resurrected in the run-up to November’s elections for House and Senate control.

That could spell fresh headaches for GOP leaders, whose party is divided between backing President Donald Trump’s hard-line views on the issue and more pragmatic Republicans.

The rebellious lawmakers are pushing the House to vote in June on four bills, including a bipartisan compromise, a conservative proposal and a liberal plan. Many of the legislators demanding action face potentially competitive re-election races in congressional districts with large numbers of Latino, suburban or agriculture-industry voters with pro-immigration views.

“We feel very importantly that this has got to happen now, and we’re willing to drive that vote,” said one of the leading proponents, Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif.

Denham and another leader of the effort, Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., met with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who has opposed their effort.

“The speaker is a very respectful person,” Curbelo said. “He just told us that he didn’t think this was the best way to proceed.”

Earlier this year, competing bills aimed at protecting young immigrants and toughening border security collapsed in the Senate, including one backed by Trump. The measures never received votes in the House.

Both parties had seemed ready to turn the battle into a campaign issue, with Democrats accusing GOP candidates of being anti-immigrant and Republicans accusing Democrats of being soft on illegal immigration.

But Republican immigration moderates wary of being politically exposed if the House abandons the issue have continued pushing leaders for votes and on Wednesday seemed to have momentum in their favor.

A group of them filed a petition that would force votes on four immigration bills if they gained the signatures of 218 House members, a majority of the chamber’s full membership.

Of the four measures, the bipartisan compromise is considered likeliest to prevail.

Ryan has tried unsuccessfully to round up enough support for the conservative alternative and has said he doesn’t want votes on immigration legislation that Trump won’t sign.

By early Wednesday afternoon, 15 Republicans had signed on and virtually all 193 Democrats were expected to add their names.

The sponsors would need to get to 218 votes to prevail.

Under House rules, the earliest the chamber would vote on the group’s proposal is late June.

Asked about the moderates’ effort, Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said, “We continue to work with our members to find a solution that can both pass the House and get the president’s signature.”

Denham introduced his proposal in March and has 248 co-sponsors, including more than 50 Republicans. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat, said he expected Democrats to sign on.

Democrats have pushed this year to protect from deportation hundreds of thousands of the young immigrants who have been shielded by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. That program lets immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children stay in the country for two-year, renewable periods.

Trump ended DACA, created under President Barack Obama, in March, though federal judges have kept it functioning during legal battles expected to last months.