Trump’s New DHS Secretary Floats a Plan to Punish Airports in Sanctuary Cities

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Monday that the Trump administration was looking at pulling customs officers from airports in so-called sanctuary cities, a move that would effectively cancel international flights to most of the country’s largest travel hubs.

Mullin pitched the move as explicit retaliation for those cities’ decisions to limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, saying, “We need to focus on cities that want to work with us.”

“I believe sanctuary cities are not lawful. I don’t think they’re able to do that,” Mullin told Fox News host Bret Baier during a sit-down interview that aired Monday, his first as a Cabinet secretary. “So we’re going to take a hard look at this.”

Sanctuary cities limit their cooperation with federal immigration agents in connection to the arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants. Major cities with these policies include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

When asked if he was serious about pulling customs officers from those airports, Mullin responded, “Well, we’re going to have to start prioritizing things at some point.”

The threat comes as DHS remains shut down, thanks to a funding lapse that began on Feb. 14 when Democratic lawmakers demanded new restrictions on immigration enforcement in exchange for their votes to fund the department.

“Democrats are wanting to defund Customs and Border Patrol,” Mullin said on Fox News. “Who processes those individuals when they walk off the plane? So I’m going to have to be forced to make hard decisions.”

The Senate eventually passed a bill that funded most of DHS through September, excluding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection. The measure soon failed in the House, though just days later President Donald Trump endorsed the framework and House Speaker Mike Johnson indicated that his conference would back the bill once the chamber returned from recess, which is set to end on April 14. It is unclear whether House members will return before then to pass the bill.

Mullin also claimed during his interview that the number of people who have been deported or have self-deported since the beginning of Trump’s second term was “just shy of 3 million.”

“We are saying, go through the system the right way and we will help you, but, if you do it illegally, I have a duty to enforce those laws. If we catch you, then we are going to deport you,” Mullin said.