DHS boss Markwayne Mullin threatens to pull customs officers from airports in sanctuary cities, including LAX
LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is again threatening to pull federal customs officers from airports in so-called “sanctuary cities” – a move that could halt international travel through Los Angeles International Airport.
“Listen, these sanctuary cities where the local radical left Democrats aren’t allowing us to do our job and enforce federal laws then we shouldn’t be processing international flights into their cities either,” Mullin said this week in an interview on Fox News.
More than a dozen airports in cities including San Francisco, New York and Chicago could face similar action. Mullin first raised the idea earlier this year and said he is now “drawing up plans,” despite criticism from within the Trump administration.
“We shouldn’t shut down air travel in a state that doesn’t agree with our politics,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently said during a congressional hearing.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass dismissed the likelihood of the proposal moving forward.
“I doubt seriously that he would follow through with that,” Bass said regarding Mullin’s comments.
Bass said she has spoken with Mullin and believes the upcoming World Cup, which begins in Los Angeles in a matter of weeks, makes the plan unrealistic.
“I am sure that there’s nobody in the administration that wants the World Cup to be a fiasco and if you were to pull custom agents and people could not come into the country that would disrupt the games,” she said.
The U.S. Travel Association, which represents the travel industry, issued a statement saying Mullin’s proposal would “have devastating consequences for the travel industry and communities that depend on international visitation.”
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