Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin revealed late Tuesday that he is drafting a proposal to halt the processing of international flights in cities he deems “sanctuary” jurisdictions, using recent protests outside an immigration detention facility in Newark as a rationale for the move.
Speaking on Fox News, Mullin pointed to demonstrations at Delaney Hall in Newark, where Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) was pepper-sprayed during a confrontation with immigration agents over the weekend. The secretary argued that local officials in left-leaning cities are obstructing federal immigration enforcement while still benefiting from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operations at their airports.
“They’re barricading our employees from coming in and out of the facility. Then, why are we processing international flights into the airport there?” Mullin said. “We’re currently drawing up plans to say, listen, these sanctuary cities where the local radical left Democrats aren’t allowing us to do our jobs and enforce federal laws, then we shouldn’t be processing international flights into their cities either.”
Mullin’s comments come as part of a broader quiet approach at DHS that has won GOP favor but left Democrats out, though this latest proposal has drawn sharp criticism from both sides of the aisle. CBP officers are responsible for vetting all international arrivals, checking visas, work permits, and other documentation to ensure travelers have legal authorization to enter the United States.
Critics warn that such a plan would create chaos at major airports, forcing airlines to cancel flights and disrupting travel for millions of passengers, regardless of their political leanings. Juliette Kayyem, a former Obama-era DHS official, dismissed the idea as counterproductive. “Of all the bad ideas floated by this Administration, this one ranks,” she wrote on X. “It has got to be real; Mullin wouldn’t waste time like this unless it is a serious distraction plan. Planes don’t divert to other airports. The flights will be cancelled, disrupting blue and red voters, impacting the airlines, and having no impact on immigration policy.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, called the proposal “actively insane.” He noted that airlines cannot easily reroute large numbers of international flights to alternate hubs. “They’d just have to cancel flights en masse, causing enormous economic damage that splashed waaaaay beyond a few big cities that were the target,” he wrote on X.
The plan would also have significant economic implications for cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, which rely heavily on international tourism and business travel. A similar disruption was seen recently when an Ebola travel ban violation forced a Detroit-bound flight to divert to Montreal, highlighting the logistical challenges of rerouting international traffic.
Mullin’s proposal has yet to be formally initiated, but his public remarks signal a willingness to escalate tensions between the Trump administration and Democratic-led cities. The move could also serve as a bargaining chip in ongoing disputes over immigration enforcement, though experts argue it would do little to address the underlying policy challenges.
As the administration continues to push for stricter border controls, this latest idea underscores the divide between federal and local authorities on immigration policy. Whether it gains traction remains uncertain, but the potential for widespread disruption has already sparked alarm among lawmakers and industry stakeholders.
