Republican Impeachment of Mayorkas Fails Amid G.O.P. Defections

The United States House of Representatives on Tuesday defeated impeachment charges against Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, after a small group of Republicans broke with their party and refused to support what amounted to a partisan indictment of President Biden’s immigration policies.

The failure of the effort was a stunning setback for Speaker Mike Johnson, who had vowed to indict Mr. Mayorkas and expressed confidence that he had the backing to charge him with high crimes and misdemeanors for failing to lock down the United States border with Mexico amid a migrant surge. House Republicans have been promising to do so for more than a year.

In an extraordinary and chaotic scene on the House floor, Republican leaders at first seemed to have clinched a victory, despite three G.O.P. defections by Representatives Ken Buck of Colorado, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Tom McClintock of California — only to have it slip through their grasp when Representative Al Green, a Texas Democrat recovering from abdominal surgery, showed up in his hospital garb to vote.

Republican leaders held the vote open for several minutes, scrambling to corral the necessary support for the charges as Democrats jeered and yelled “Order! Order!” and the tally hovered at a tie. In the end, they could not overcome the opposition, and the measure failed by a vote of 216 to 214.

Last week, the House Homeland Security Committee approved two articles that charged Mr. Mayorkas with refusing to comply with the law and breaching the public trust. But it was only over the past few weeks that Republican leaders, under pressure from the hard right, rushed the impeachment through the committee and to the floor — without ever ensuring they had the requisite support to pass it given their minuscule House majority.