Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters in North Carolina on Tuesday that the federal government could stop processing international travelers at major airports in sanctuary cities, a move that would effectively ground international air travel at some of the busiest hubs in the country if carried out.
Mullin framed the idea as one of several options under consideration as Congress remains deadlocked over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, including Customs and Border Protection. He stopped short of calling it a decision, but he did not back away from it either.
The logic, as Mullin laid it out, is blunt: if cities refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, Washington has no reason to staff those cities with federal customs officers who process the international travelers flowing through their airports. It is a pressure play aimed squarely at Democratic-led jurisdictions that have adopted sanctuary policies, and at the Democratic lawmakers who have refused since mid-February to fund DHS without conditions that would scale back the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
Speaking to reporters, Mullin described the proposal as preliminary but real enough to warrant conversations with President Trump.
"If cities are going to sit there and say that they're not going to enforce immigration policies, then I'll repeat myself and say it doesn't make any sense for us to process international travelers through that city."
He added a caveat, but not much of one:
"We're going to start having those conversations. As I said, this is just something I'm thinking. This isn't something that I'm necessarily going to do."
When pressed on whether pulling customs officers was genuinely on the table, Mullin's answer was two words: "It's an option."
That phrasing, deliberate, not accidental, leaves the administration room to escalate or retreat. But the fact that a sitting DHS secretary publicly named the idea, identified the cities that could be targeted, and said he planned to discuss it with the president moves it well past the hypothetical stage.
The U.S. Department of Justice published a list of so-called sanctuary cities and states in October 2025. That list includes many of the nation's largest international gateways: Denver, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Newark, Seattle, and San Francisco.
Consider the scale. New York's three major airports alone processed more than 50 million international travelers last year. If customs officers were pulled from those facilities, no international flight could land and deplane passengers through normal channels. The ripple effects on trade, tourism, and commerce would be immediate and severe.
Mullin's argument rests on a straightforward legal claim: state and city sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement are, in his view, illegal because they contradict federal immigration law. That position has been a fixture of conservative legal thought for years. What is new is the proposed remedy, not a lawsuit or a funding penalty, but the withdrawal of a core federal service that keeps international airports functioning.
The former Oklahoma senator confirmed as DHS secretary earlier this year has shown a willingness to use the tools at his disposal aggressively. This would be the most dramatic step yet.
Mullin's comments did not emerge in a vacuum. Since mid-February, Democrats in Congress have refused to support additional money for the Trump administration's immigration enforcement apparatus without reforms they say would scale back aggressive tactics. That standoff has left DHS operating under mounting fiscal pressure, with CBP caught in the middle.
The consequences have already started showing up at airports. TSA operations have been strained as the funding deadlock drags on, and the agency has struggled to maintain normal staffing levels.
Democrats have framed their opposition as a check on executive overreach. But from the administration's perspective, the refusal to fund DHS is itself a form of obstruction, one that hamstrings the department's ability to carry out its statutory mission. Mullin's airport proposal takes that argument and turns it into leverage.
The staffing losses are not theoretical. Hundreds of TSA agents have already left as the shutdown drains airport security staffing nationwide, a trend that makes the prospect of pulling customs officers even more disruptive.
The FIFA World Cup is set to begin in early June. The United States is a host nation, and multiple tournament venues sit in or near the sanctuary cities Mullin identified. Pulling customs processing from airports serving those cities weeks before the world's largest sporting event would create a logistical crisis visible on a global stage.
That timing may be strategic. International sporting events require massive coordination between federal, state, and local agencies. If sanctuary cities cannot guarantee that federal customs officers will be on-site to process the hundreds of thousands of international visitors expected for the tournament, the pressure on Democratic officials to negotiate on DHS funding grows considerably.
Even some Democrats have warned that the DHS funding standoff is putting World Cup security preparation dangerously behind schedule. Mullin's proposal would make that problem far worse, and place the blame squarely on the jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate.
Several questions remain unanswered. Mullin did not specify which airports would be affected first, or on what timeline. He did not say whether President Trump had endorsed the idea or merely heard it. And he did not detail what specific sanctuary policies he considers illegal, only that he believes state and local laws limiting immigration enforcement contradict federal statutes.
The gap between "something I'm thinking" and a formal policy directive is real. But so is the gap between a normal funding negotiation and the one playing out now. Democrats have held firm since mid-February. The administration has signaled it will not accept conditions that limit enforcement. Something has to give.
Mullin's public airing of the airport option may be designed to force that break. If Democratic mayors and governors face the prospect of their airports going dark to international traffic, and the economic damage that would follow, the political calculus around the DHS funding fight changes fast.
Since taking office at DHS, Mullin has made clear he views sanctuary policies as an affront to federal authority. This proposal is the sharpest expression of that view yet, one that ties immigration enforcement, airport operations, and congressional funding into a single pressure point.
Whether it is a bluff or a blueprint, the message to sanctuary cities is the same: federal cooperation is not a one-way street. If local governments want the benefits of federal services at their airports, they may have to stop obstructing the federal laws those same officers are sworn to enforce.
Cities that want federal customs officers processing their international flights might start by not blocking federal immigration officers from doing their jobs down the hall.
