WASHINGTON — In a dramatic setback, House Republicans failed Tuesday to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, forced to shelve a high-profile priority — for now — after a few GOP lawmakers refused to go along with the party’s plan.

The stunning 216-214 roll call fell just a few votes short of impeaching Mayorkas, stalling the Republicans’ drive to punish the Biden administration over its handling of the U.S.-Mexico border. With Democrats united against the charges, the Republicans needed almost every vote from their slim majority to approve the articles of impeachment.

The House is likely to revisit plans to impeach Mayorkas, but next steps are highly uncertain.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who could lose only a few Republicans from his slim majority, said he personally spoke to the GOP holdouts acknowledging the “heavy, heavy” vote as he sought their support.

“It’s an extreme measure,” said Johnson, R-La.. “But extreme times call for extreme measures.”

Not since 1876 has a Cabinet secretary faced impeachment charges and it’s the first time a sitting secretary is being impeached — 148 years ago, Secretary of War William Belknap resigned just before the vote.

The impeachment charges against Mayorkas come as border security is fast becoming a top political issue in the 2024 election, a particularly potent line of attack being leveled at President Joe Biden by Republicans, led by the party’s front-runner for the presidential nomination, Donald Trump.

Record numbers of people have been arriving at the southern border, many fleeing countries around the world, in what Mayorkas calls an era of global migration. Many migrants are claiming asylum and being conditionally released into the U.S., arriving in cities that are underequipped to provide housing and other aid while they await judicial proceedings which can take years to determine whether they may remain.

The House Democrats united against the two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, calling the proceedings a sham designed to please Trump, charges that do not rise to the Constitution’s bar of treason, bribery or “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

“A bunch of garbage,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. He called Mayorkas “a good man, a decent man,” who is simply trying to do his job.

Even if Republicans are eventually able to impeach Mayorkas, he is not expected to be convicted in a Senate trial where Republican senators have been cool to the effort. The Senate could simply refer the matter to a committee for its own investigation, delaying immediate action.

The impeachment of Mayorkas landed quickly onto the House agenda after Republican efforts to impeach Biden over the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden, hit a lull, and the investigation into the Biden family drags.

The Committee on Homeland Security under Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., had been investigating the secretary for much of the past year, including probing the flow of deadly fentanyl into the U.S. But a resolution from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a Trump ally, pushed it to the fore. The panel swiftly held a pair of hearings in January before announcing the two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas.

Unlike other moments in impeachment history, the arguments played out to an almost empty chamber, without the fervor or solemnity of past proceedings.

Republican Rep. Eli Crane if Arizona said Mayorkas had committed a “dereliction of duty.”

Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the Mayorkas impeachment vote was a stunt designed by Republicans to sow “chaos and confusion” and appease Trump — rather than to govern.

“No reasonable American can conclude that you’re making life better for them by this sham impeachment,” Jeffries said.

A former federal prosecutor, the secretary never testified on his own behalf, but submitted a rare letter to the panel defending his work.

GOP Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Ca., announced his opposition saying the charges “fail to identify an impeachable crime that Mayorkas has committed.”

The conservative McClintock said in a lengthy memo that the articles of impeachment from the committee explain the problems at the border under Biden’s watch. But he said, “they stretch and distort the Constitution.”

Another Republican, retiring Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, also said he was against impeaching Mayorkas.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., also voted no. Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, switched to a no vote to allow the House GOP to bring the vote up again.