Biden DHS Chief Alejandro Mayorkas spent four years swearing the border was secure while millions of strangers walked across it.
The new DHS secretary just sent a very different message.
And Markwayne Mullin just changed the DHS Seal in a way that has every terrorist on notice.
The Eagle Is Now Facing the Arrows
The DHS seal has shown an eagle since the department was built in the ashes of 9/11.
That eagle holds a palm leaf in one talon and a bundle of arrows in the other.
For 24 years, the eagle faced the palm – the symbol of peace.
Mullin just ordered it turned around.
"If you look at most of our seals throughout all the agencies, the eagle looks to the palm because that's in a time of peace," Mullin said Sunday on The Sunday Briefing. "We're actually changing our seal to make it look towards the arrows, because when it looks towards the arrows is when it means we're at war."
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Not hedged.
At war.
Every single day.
The Threat Nobody Wanted to Say Out Loud
Mullin didn't stop at the symbolic gesture.
He said what the intelligence community has been watching quietly for years – Islamic terrorist networks are now working hand-in-hand with Mexican cartels.
"We're seeing the Islamic terrorists joining with the Mexican cartels that are trying to use all the resources to come after us," Mullin said.
This isn't a fringe theory.
The 2026 U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy formally names "narcoterrorists and transnational gangs" as one of the nation's three primary terrorism threats – right alongside al-Qaeda and ISIS-K.
Mullin pointed out that fentanyl overdoses have already killed more Americans than the Vietnam War.
That's a body count, not a policy debate.
Trump put cartels on the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list for exactly this reason – because treating them as a law enforcement problem was failing while Americans died by the tens of thousands.
Now the threat has gone airborne.
Mullin warned that drones – the kind available on Amazon – are already being used to surveil sensitive American infrastructure.
"We have tried to protect our sensitive areas with fences and armed security guards. Now we're having to realize that the threat comes from the air, too," he said.
A consumer drone can now reconnoiter a power grid that took billions to build.
China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are meanwhile launching cyberattacks on American targets – DHS puts the volume at hundreds of thousands every single week.
What the Turned Eagle Actually Means
Three days before America marks 25 years since nearly 3,000 people were murdered on their own soil, Mullin is telling every man and woman at DHS – and every adversary watching – that the peacetime posture is over.
The Mayorkas era gave America a secretary who testified before Congress that the border was "secure" while millions of unknown people walked across it.
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Mullin's era starts with the eagle staring at the arrows and a frank admission that terrorists and cartels are running plays together against the United States – and that the next attack might come from a drone you can order before lunch.
A government seal is a piece of graphic design.
But a secretary who changes his department's seal the week of the 9/11 anniversary is telling you something.
He's telling you they're not pretending anymore.
Sources:
- Max Bacall, "DHS chief announces changes to its seal to reflect that department is 'at war every single day,'" Fox News, September 7, 2026.
- "White House Releases 2026 Counterterrorism Strategy With Focus on Cartels, Iran, and Domestic Extremism," Homeland Security Today, 2026.
- "2026 Homeland Security Threat Forecast: Part I, Terrorism," Homeland Security Today, 2026.
- "U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy 2026: The Return of Hard Power and a New Definition of Security Threats," Defense Magazine, 2026.