New Delhi, May 21 -- US Senate Republicans have removed a contentious $1 billion Secret Service funding provision from an immigration enforcement bill after a parliamentary ruling and mounting internal dissent put the measure in jeopardy, dealing a significant setback to the White House's ambitions for its East Wing renovation project.

Republican senators confirmed Wednesday that the billion-dollar Secret Service allocation, which had been explicitly linked in draft legislation to the so-called East Wing Modernisation Project, would not survive the final cut of the party's filibuster-proof immigration enforcement package.

"We were told that the ballroom money is out," Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana told reporters following a closed-d...