Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is a rising Republican power in House, as well as a whip

The beginning of the collapse of House Speaker John A. Boehner’s border bill came Wednesday evening, when Texas Sen. Ted Cruz gathered more than a dozen House Republicans at his office in the Dirksen building on Capitol Hill.

It was there, as Boehner (R-Ohio) held his own meetings on the other side of Constitution Avenue, that Cruz heard that the speaker didn’t have enough votes — and realized that if his House allies held firm, he could rupture the fragile coalition supporting the measure.

The problem, they said, was President Obama’s Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, the product of a 2012 executive order that granted temporary relief for some children of illegal immigrants. They wanted it gone, gutted, and they were furious that Boehner wouldn’t touch it.

In an interview, Cruz said that he did not dictate what the members should do, but only reaffirmed his position against Boehner’s plan.

“The suggestion by some that House members are unable to stand up and fight for their own conservative principles is offensive and belittling to House conservatives,” Cruz said. “They know what they believe and it would be absurd for anyone to try to tell them what to think.”

The idea that the freshman is looking to be speaker in all but name is “hyperbole,” Cruz added, uttered by “Democrats desperate to shift blame.”

“In the months before an election, or heading into a congressional recess, we always seem to enter silly season,” he said. “The focus of this debate needs to remain on the cause of the crisis and the cause of the crisis is President Obama’s refusal to follow the law.”