Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin appeared before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security on Tuesday, defending the Trump administration’s $71.7 billion budget request for the department and facing questions over immigration enforcement, airport security threats, and a new green card policy that has rattled immigration attorneys.
It was Mullin’s first appearance before the Senate since his confirmation hearing in March.
The hearing comes as Senate Republicans are attempting to pass legislation that would fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection through the end of Trump’s term in a procedural move that would bypass Democratic support entirely. Democrats have conditioned any agreement to fund those agencies on placing limits on the administration’s enforcement operations.
That effort has stalled, however, not over Democratic opposition but over Republican resistance to a separate provision: a $1.776 billion settlement fund intended to compensate Trump allies who allege they were targeted for political prosecution. A growing bloc of GOP senators has refused to advance the package while that fund remains attached.
Mullin is also facing scrutiny over a threat he made to pull CBP officers from international airports in sanctuary cities, a move that could disrupt travel ahead of the FIFA World Cup, scheduled to be held in the United States this summer.
Mullin, speaking at a news conference in Dallas on Monday, said he has a contingency plan to redeploy CBP officers to the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, where protesters have gathered outside for days. But he said current cooperation with state and local law enforcement has made that unnecessary for now.
“As long as we continue to have this partnership with local and state law enforcement then there will be no need to do so,” Mullin told reporters.
Mullin replaced Kristi Noem, who was fired by Trump earlier this year. He has positioned his tenure as a period of operational stability following what administration officials described as organizational turbulence under Noem.
