WASHINGTON - The House has voted to embrace the legal challenge to President Barack Obama's actions on immigration.

It's part of an election-year fight over executive authority and the 11 million immigrants living in the United States that has roiled the Republican Party.

Republicans says Obama exceeded his constitutional authority in unilaterally expanding programs for immigrants. They prevailed on a 234-186 vote Thursday that authorizes Speaker Paul Ryan to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the case of United States v. Texas.

Texas and 25 states have challenged Obama's actions.

Obama acted in late 2014 to allow people who have been in the United States more than five years and who have children who are in the country legally to "come out of the shadows and get right with the law."