Summary
- DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin wants to punish sanctuary jurisdictions by cutting customs staffing at their airports.
- The plan faces opposition from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the travel industry over disruption concerns.
- Two Trump officials say the proposal is not being seriously considered by the administration.
AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has become preoccupied with an idea to punish cities and states that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement — cutting customs staffing at their airports and possibly stopping the processing of international travelers all together.
But the ambitious plan is hitting turbulence: It has sent the travel industry and local officials reeling because of its disruptive potential, has been publicly opposed by a fellow Cabinet secretary, and has not yet been greenlit by the White House.
If “radical left Democrats” aren’t allowing federal authorities to enforce immigration laws in their communities, Mullin told Fox News earlier this week, “then we shouldn’t be processing international flights into their cities either.”
“They don’t want us to enforce immigration but they want us to process immigration at their facilities? Nothing about that makes sense to me,” the secretary said.
Airlines, for their part, have not commented on the plan or how close they believe it is to being implemented. If enacted, it would have huge implications for trade and tourism within the US, even if the administration decided to wait until after the upcoming World Cup matches. Cascading disruptions could affect large and small American airports in red states and blue states.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy criticized Mullin’s plan during a recent congressional hearing: “We shouldn’t shut down air travel in a state that doesn’t agree with our politics,” he said last week.
And while Mullin keeps mentioning the idea in media interviews, there are not imminent plans for such a move, two Trump officials familiar with the matter told CNN.
The push is seen internally as more of a personal desire of Mullin’s than one coming from inside the West Wing. One of the officials said Mullin has been “obsessed” with the idea since being sworn in as Homeland Security secretary in March to replace his ousted predecessor, Kristi Noem, bringing it up unprompted during meetings at the White House.
“The President loves having a team that is constantly coming up with new ideas but ultimately any policy decisions will be up to him,” a White House official said.
While Mullin has been widely viewed as a stabilizing force atop DHS after a chaotic year under Noem’s control, and has built up a lot of goodwill with the president, his airport plan could have significant and wide-ranging consequences.
Some Trump officials have privately acknowledged the havoc the plan could wreak on international travel, and the industry has made the same point publicly.
“Reducing [Customs and Border Protection] staffing at major airports would have a devastating effect on the airline and tourism industries, causing a significant operational disruption to carriers, travelers and the flow of international cargo,” Airlines for America, a trade association that lobbies for several major American carriers, said in a statement.
The US Travel Association, a national organization that advocates for all aspects of the country’s travel industry, said its representatives recently met with Mullin. The secretary “confirmed his previous comments that the administration is considering a withdrawal” of customs agents at some major international airports, the association said in a statement.
“U.S. Travel believes such a move would have devastating consequences for the travel industry and communities that depend on international visitation,” the statement said.
While Mullin has pitched the idea as a means of punishing sanctuary jurisdictions, it could have much more wide-ranging impacts if put into practice. Just because international travelers arrive to the US via airports like JFK or SFO, that doesn’t mean that New York City or San Francisco are their final destinations.
Airline routes are set far in advance, and simply changing those routes to land in a non-sanctuary jurisdiction would not be an easy task given that many busy airports lack extra capacity.
There is no one definition for a “sanctuary city.” The term is generally understood to mean jurisdictions that set policy or law limiting local cooperation with the federal government in the enforcement of immigration law. The Department of Justice published a list last year of what it considers to be sanctuary jurisdictions.
That list seems to have expanded since the beginning of the year. Mullin has frequently criticized Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who earlier this month signed an executive order limiting state officials’ cooperation with federal immigration officers. Dulles International Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, two of the three primary airports serving Washington, DC, are located in Virginia.
Also on the DOJ list are New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle and Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said his state “will respond” if the federal government acts in a “a reckless, chaotic, cruel way.”
