WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders in the House and Senate were blocked Tuesday by a senior GOP senator in their efforts to add immigration, handgun and Internet gambling measures to a defense bill.

Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, rejected appeals from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert to use his bill on military pay raises as a vehicle for their pet measures.

Warner said in a memo to Frist he is "firmly opposed" to including unrelated bills in the defense bill. Two other Republicans also oppose the add-on bills, Warner said.

Hastert had insisted on adding to the defense bill a measure the House passed last week that would make it easier to detain and deport illegal immigrants who are members of violent criminal street gangs.

"Cracking down on gangs might be divisive in San Francisco, but it's not in the rest of America," Hastert said in a reference to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who represents the city by the bay. "It's my hope the Senate will live up to its word so that we can send this measure to the president for his signature."

The speaker also wanted to use the defense bill as a vehicle for a House measure allowing judges to carry handguns and bolstering courthouse security in response to the murder of a Chicago federal judge's husband and mother last year.

Warner balked at both, saying he wanted to keep the defense bill bipartisan at a time when U.S. troops are at war. Warner said that he, along with Democrats and at least two other Republicans, would not sign off on it or any other "out-of-scope" bills that were added.

"There are not even sufficient signatures to affect a partisan Republican" defense bill, he said.

Senate Democrats, including Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., support tightening court security. But the House-passed version allowing judges to carry concealed weapons cooled their support for the measure. Democrats also oppose aspects of the immigration bill, which has drawn fire from immigration rights groups.

Hastert said Tuesday he has offered to drop the provision allowing judges to carry a concealed weapon.

Frist, eyeing a 2008 presidential bid, has been pushing for the Internet gambling crackdown. Among other things, the provision would ban the use of credit cards, checks and other forms of payment to settle online wagers.

Other immigration measures passed by the House this month also have stalled as senators refused to add them to the Homeland Security spending bill.

A bill providing prison sentences for those who build or finance tunnels across U.S. borders was included in the spending bill.

A House bill proposing a 700-mile fence remained mired in Senate wrangling over a separate bill addressing U.S. treatment of wartime detainees.

House and Senate negotiators agreed late Tuesday to devote $1.2 billion to fences and other barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. However, only $250 million of it can be used until the Homeland Security Department details to Congress how the other $950 million would be spent.

The Senate had approved $1.8 billion for 370 miles of fence and 500 miles of vehicle barriers.

"Some would say that, 'Well the fencing will probably take two years to complete anyway and we can come back next year' but ... promises of appropriations in the future often don't materialize," complained Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

Associated Press writers Anne Plummer Flaherty and Nancy Zuckerbrod in Washington contributed to this report.