Markwayne Mullin Just Gave Sanctuary Cities a Choice They Never Saw Coming

April 9, 2026 Cat2, Illegal Immigration
J.D.S via shutterstock

San Francisco let a criminal alien walk free and ICE had to chase him down at the airport.

Now the new DHS Secretary just told San Francisco – and every other sanctuary city – that their airport might be next.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin went on Fox News Monday and dropped a threat so simple and so devastating that Democrat mayors across the country started panicking before the interview was over.

Mullin Threatens to Pull Customs Officers From Sanctuary City Airports

Mullin told Bret Baier exactly what the new rules are.

"I believe sanctuary cities are not lawful," he said.

Then he went straight for the jugular.

If sanctuary cities refuse to partner with federal immigration officers once travelers leave the airport, Mullin said DHS will start asking a very uncomfortable question: why should those cities have international airports at all?

Three million people clear customs at JFK every single month.

LAX handles tens of millions of international arrivals every year.

Chicago's O'Hare, Boston Logan, Seattle, Denver, Philadelphia, San Francisco – all sanctuary cities, all processing international passengers, all demanding that customs officers do their jobs at the gate while local cops refuse to do theirs on the street.

Mullin called that arrangement exactly what it is – a free ride.

"We need to focus on cities that want to work with us," he said.

Democrats immediately screamed. Gavin Newsom's press office called it a "stupid idea."

The usual suspects on social media warned of chaos.

What they didn't say was that Mullin is wrong.

Why the DHS Airport Play Bypasses Every Lawsuit Democrats Have Won

Here's what Democrats and their media allies won't tell you.

Trump's first term tried to defund sanctuary cities and judges blocked it every time.

Democrats found a legal door, ran through it, and slammed it behind them.

Mullin found a different door – one they forgot existed.

Every lawsuit that killed Trump's first-term approach targeted the same thing: federal money flowing to cities that break federal law.

Courts said Congress controls the money, not the president.

Fine. Mullin isn't touching the money.

He's talking about people – specifically, whether DHS sends its own federal employees to process customs at airports in cities that spit in those same employees' faces the moment travelers hit the street.

CBP officers aren't a grant. They're not a check.

They're federal workers, and the executive branch decides where federal workers show up.

Democrats spent years building a legal wall around federal funding. Mullin just walked around the whole wall.

Sanctuary Cities Face a Choice That Could Cost Them JFK and LAX

Here's what no one in the mainstream media will say out loud.

Sanctuary city mayors built their entire political machine on one promise: protect the illegal migrant population, because that population is the engine that keeps them in power.

Teachers, school staff, healthcare workers, welfare administrators – every one of those Democrat-based jobs exists because illegal migrants are consuming city services.

And those same mayors have been running a separate scam: demanding full federal cooperation at their airports while refusing that same cooperation the moment a passenger clears the terminal doors.

Federal officers process the arrivals. Local cops protect the sanctuary.

The mayors collect the political benefits of both.

Mullin just said that arrangement is over.

Now Democrat mayors face a choice that exposes everything.

Option one: keep protecting the illegal migrant machine and lose the international flights that bring in the business travelers, cargo, and tourism dollars that fund their cities.

Option two: cooperate with federal immigration enforcement and watch their political base – the one built on cheap labor and swollen welfare rolls – start to shrink.

There is no good answer for them.

That's what happens when you spend years playing both sides of a federal partnership.

The same Democrats who are screaming about Mullin's announcement spent the last two months refusing to fund DHS at all – leaving 61,000 TSA workers without pay and creating chaos at the very airports they're now pretending to care about.

They don't care about the airports.

They care about the machine.

Mullin just made the machine expensive to run.

Sources:

  • Neil Munro, "New Border Chief Markwayne Mullin Threatens to Close Sanctuary Cities' International Airports," Breitbart, April 7, 2026.
  • "DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin Signals Closer Scrutiny of Customs at Major Sanctuary City Airports," Fox News, April 6, 2026.
  • Ben Smith, "Mullin Floats Pulling CBP From Sanctuary City Airports if They Don't Partner on Immigration Enforcement," RedState, April 6, 2026.
  • "Mullin: If CBP Isn't Funded, I'll Have to Make 'Hard' Choices on Ending Customs for Sanctuaries," Breitbart, April 6, 2026.