WASHINGTON, DC - The Trump administration has had it up to its eyeballs with sanctuary states and cities and is poised to take decisive action to force their hands to obey federal immigration law and cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, appearing on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” told host Laura Ingraham that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will continue deporting illegal aliens despite so-called “sanctuary” restrictions, Fox News Digital reported. Mullin told Ingraham that the administration is exploring the possibility of hitting sanctuary jurisdictions where it hurts, in their pocketbooks.
“Literally 20 minutes ago, I was sitting in the Oval Office of the president, and we were having this conversation about how do we withhold funding legally from these sanctuary cities,” Mullin told Ingraham.
“Why are we allowing these sanctuary cities to still get funding from the federal government when it comes to, let’s say, their airport, when we’re processing immigration through these international airports? Why would we be processing immigration policies and immigrants into our state or into a city that is a sanctuary state or sanctuary city? It doesn’t make any sense to me,” he continued.
This is not the first time that Mullin has floated the idea of ceasing U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations at international travel hubs. As Law Enforcement Today reported in June, Mullin mentioned the idea back then.
DHS and its affiliated agencies have fulfilled President Trump’s campaign promise that he was going to close the borders (mission accomplished) and implement the largest mass deportation campaign in history in an attempt to unwind the damage done by the open borders policies of former President Joe Biden and former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Recently, an operation in New York dubbed Rotten Apple resulted in over 2,100 arrests, including illegal aliens accused of murder, rape, child abuse, and drug trafficking.
Mullin told Fox News that the president and his administration are looking at ways to hold back federal funding from sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate or actively inhibit federal immigration enforcement.
“President Trump is looking for ways. He had other people that were in the Oval Office with me talking about how can we hold federal funding from these sanctuary cities that are refusing to just simply do one thing: uphold the law of the land,” Mullin said, adding that his agency and immigration agents “don’t pick and choose which laws to enforce.”
“I enforce the law that Congress passed. But Congress and these other liberal politicians, these sanctuary cities and sanctuary states are the ones that are griping the loudest about the work that my [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents are doing every day,” he added.
Among those arrested in the New York operation was a Ukrainian national with convictions for kidnapping, abduction resulting in death, criminal possession of a weapon, and murder, DHS said. The agency added that another suspect from Colombia had previously been arrested for “course of sexual conduct against a child” and acting “in a manner to injure a child less than 17.”
When Mullin floated the idea of pulling customs agents from sanctuary jurisdiction airports in June, some Republican senators endorsed the idea, including the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
“I think there should be consequences to cities and states that undercut federal law,” Graham told Fox News Digital. “I think they should pay a price for what they do. I agree with what he’s doing.”
Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) agreed with Graham.
“I think it’s a choice that those cities make, and they’d have to weigh the consequences of it,” Fischer said. “If they want to be a sanctuary city, they’ve made the choice and they’re getting a response now from Homeland Security.”
A couple of Republican senators, however, raised concerns, including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).
“I don’t know about this,” Hawley said. “Somebody else asked me about that, and I hadn’t seen that from him yet. So, I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of that.”
Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) said, “I need to learn more about it.”
Mullin’s proposal in June came just before the World Cup, when millions of visitors from around the world came to the United States for soccer’s biggest event. That’s a plausible reason why the proposal has just recently been resurrected.
Comments