U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 13, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
During a late May appearance on Fox News, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin argued that if "radical left Democrats" weren't on board with President Donald Trump's immigration policies, "we shouldn't be processing international flights into their cities" — a threat that is generating anxiety among civil libertarians, law professors, the travel industry, economists and immigration rights activists all at once. Conservative journalist Andrew Egger, in The Bulwark, warned that "blocking all international flights into a particular city's airport" would be both illegal and a recipe for "economic devastation." And during an appearance on The New Republic's podcast, "The Daily Blast," Nayna Gupta (policy director for the American Immigration Council) laid out an array of reasons why Mullin's threat is so problematic.
"Daily Blast" host Greg Sargent described Mullin's "deranged threat" to "block international flights going into" Democratic cities as "incredibly absurd" and exemplary of "the ugliest aspects of" Trump's "presidency."
Guest Gupta warned that if the Trump Administration and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) actually followed through on Mullin's threat, the economic fallout would be brutal.
"Look, I mean, this is the Trump Administration, now with Mullin at the helm of DHS, once again threatening vindictive actions because they don't like growing public pushback on their policies," Gupta told Sargent on the podcast. "And it's really important to note that if the (Trump) Administration actually pulled off this outrageous threat of diverting flights out of entire major metropolitan areas, this wouldn't be about just hurting those cities or immigrants. It would be hurting very many Americans."
Sargent's guest continued, "This would be hugely disruptive to critical industries, to travelers who travel through these airports, at a moment when the economy is already facing strain and we know that voters are feeling very poorly about this administration's economic policies."
Gupta noted, however, that "we don't know still how real this threat is."
"We've seen the administration make sweeping threats and then walk those back when they face backlash or because they can't actually effectuate those threats," the American Immigration Council policy director told Sargent. "But the fact that he's even on national news networks talking about this underscores their disregard for Americans generally and their willingness again to be vindictive about policies that are totally within the rights of states and local governments."
Sargent played a clip of a Fox News host saying that "pulling CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) out of airports" in Democratic cities "would effectively be the end of international travel into big airports like LAX, San Francisco, Boston Logan, JFK, Newark, Chicago, Philly, Seattle, many others."
Gupta told Sargent, "So, let's be clear about exactly how disruptive and draconian this is. Airlines cannot simply divert flights. There are landing slot limits, which means other airports couldn't take the volume. People wouldn't necessarily be flying into the specific city they enter the U.S. and maybe transiting elsewhere. And so, in reality, we can imagine mass flight cancellations, huge disruption at airports, long lines, people being stuck and stranded in cities where they have nowhere to go."