DHS threatens to halt international flights at sanctuary city airports

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin went on Fox News on May 27, 2026, and said his department is "currently drawing up plans" to pull Customs and Border Protection officers from international flight processing at airports in sanctuary cities. His exact words: "In these sanctuary cities where the local radical left Democrats aren't allowing us to do our job and enforce federal laws, then we shouldn't be processing international flights into their cities." He added the move is "not initiating yet" but framed it as an active planning effort. He also said: "I am not going outside the policies that Congress passed for me" — narrowing his claimed authority to existing statutes rather than emergency powers.

The trigger was the Memorial Day weekend protests outside Delaney Hall, a private ICE detention facility in Newark operated by the GEO Group under a 15-year, $1 billion federal contract. More than 300 detainees launched a hunger and labor strike on May 22, 2026, protesting spoiled food, live worms found in meals, no blankets in cold cells, inadequate medical care, and lack of due process. On May 25, 2026, when Sen. Andy Kim exited after a congressional oversight visit, ICE agents in tactical gear deployed pepper-ball projectiles and fired rubber bullets into the crowd. Kim was struck in the hand and inhaled the irritant. ICE agents moved armored vehicles through the crowd without warning. No ICE officials were named publicly for the deployment order. Mullin dismissed concerns about the incident and cited it two days later to justify the airport threat.

Mullin doubled down through May 30, 2026, expanding the list of targeted cities. The DOJ's sanctuary jurisdiction list includes Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco — most of which have major international airports. LAX processed roughly 23.6 million international passengers in 2025, generating operating revenue of $2.05 billion. O'Hare handled 14.84 million international passengers in 2025, with total annual operating revenue of $1.61 billion. SFO handled 15.9 million international passengers. New York City's three airports projected 150 million total passengers in 2025. Together, these airports anchor the U.S. entry system for international visitors.

CBP officers at international airports operate primarily under 8 U.S.C. § 1356, which requires airlines to pay a per-passenger user fee to fund CBP inspection services. Congress wrote that fee-for-service structure into law in 1986 as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, creating a legal expectation that paying airlines receive CBP processing at their destination airports. Withdrawing officers would disrupt the fee-for-service framework Congress established — a built-in statutory tension with Mullin's claim that he's acting within congressional authority. 8 U.S.C. § 1225, the separate provision governing inspection of arriving aliens, establishes mandatory inspection requirements that also depend on CBP officer presence. Without CBP processing, international flights can't legally land at a U.S. port of entry. Airlines don't divert to nearby airports. They cancel.

The opposition went well beyond Airlines for America and the U.S. Travel Association. Airlines for America stated that "Reducing CBP staffing at major airports would have a devastating effect" on carriers, travelers, and international cargo. The National Business Aviation Association joined a coalition of aviation and travel organizations on May 29, 2026, urging DHS to avoid reducing CBP operations at U.S. airport ports of entry. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy broke with Mullin at a congressional hearing, saying: "We shouldn't shut down air travel in a state that doesn't agree with our politics." Two Trump administration officials told CNN on May 29, 2026, that the proposal is not being seriously considered inside the West Wing and reflects Mullin's personal fixation rather than coordinated White House policy.

The FIFA World Cup timing made the threat acutely damaging. The tournament opens June 11, 2026 — 15 days after Mullin's announcement — with 11 U.S. host cities: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle. Six of those 11 cities are sanctuary jurisdictions: Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle. The federal government had already invested heavily in making the tournament work: DHS and FEMA awarded a record $625 million to states and cities for World Cup security, and CBP processed over 5 million ESTA applications from October 2025 through April 2026 for World Cup visitors. An estimated 10 million visitors are expected across U.S. host cities. Pulling CBP from sanctuary-city airports wouldn't just cancel routine flights. It would unravel federal security infrastructure the government spent hundreds of millions of dollars building for the event.

The constitutional landscape Mullin's threat navigates runs through three Supreme Court cases. In New York v. United States (1992), the Court struck down a federal law requiring states to clean up nuclear waste by a deadline, establishing that Congress can't command state legislatures to enact federal regulatory programs. In Printz v. United States (1997), Justice Scalia wrote for the majority that the federal government can't conscript state law enforcement officers to administer federal programs — the ruling that protects sanctuary cities from being forced to honor ICE detainers. But those anti-commandeering precedents protect states from being compelled to act. They don't automatically protect cities from losing federal services. The is where Mullin's threat hits different legal terrain. In NFIB v. Sebelius (2012), seven justices found that threatening to strip all Medicaid funding was coercive because states had "no meaningful choice." The question Mullin's threat raises — whether withdrawing a federal service rather than a grant condition triggers coercion analysis — has no court ruling yet.

The Sessions precedent from 2017 shows how courts have treated earlier coercion attempts against sanctuary jurisdictions. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in July 2017 that Byrne JAG grants would be conditioned on cities allowing ICE access to local jails and providing 48 hours' notice before releasing undocumented immigrants. Chicago sued. The Seventh Circuit unanimously struck down Sessions' conditions in April 2018, holding that the executive branch can't use "the sword of federal funding to conscript state and local authorities." A September 2025 district court ruling extended that logic to disaster relief funds. CBP service withdrawal is legally novel — a service removal rather than a grant condition — but the same basic coercion argument applies, and no administration has yet successfully used this lever.

Sen. Andy Kim's response after the Delaney Hall pepper-spraying went beyond personal complaint. Kim told the New Jersey Monitor he's seeking changes at the facility and introduced a legislative package to end warehouse detention nationwide and prohibit taxpayer funds from supporting what he called ICE lawlessness. He highlighted a revolving door at Delaney Hall: the facility is operated by the GEO Group, whose former consultant was Trump's border czar Tom Homan, and whose former employee became acting ICE director. When Mullin cited the Newark protests to justify the airport threat, Kim responded: "This was never about me. I'm complaining about what the treatment is to my constituents, to Americans and to civilians that were in harm's way." Kim and Rep. Rob Menendez conducted multiple oversight visits documenting detainees reporting rotten frozen food, live worms, and contaminated water. Kim tasted the water himself during one visit.

The Trump administration simultaneously threatened to cut CBP service to sanctuary city airports and spent $625 million in federal security grants to make those same cities' airports and stadiums safe for the World Cup. CBP stood up a dedicated travel facilitation operation and a virtual assistant system called COMPASS for the tournament. International arrivals to the U.S. were already projected down 10-15% for 2026 before Mullin's announcement. Canadian road crossings had fallen 35% by early 2026, costing the economy more than $8 billion in 2025 alone. Hotel demand in FIFA World Cup host cities was already tracking below expectations. A CBP pullout would accelerate every one of those trends, with revenue losses falling hardest on hospitality, ground transport, and retail workers serving international travelers.

The GEO Group sits at the intersection of private detention and federal . The company operates Delaney Hall under a $1 billion federal contract with a 1,000-bed capacity. Tom Homan, Trump's border czar and a prominent voice for the administration's immigration posture, previously consulted for GEO Group. The acting ICE director also previously worked for GEO Group. The Eyes on ICE coalition organized and sustained the protests outside Delaney Hall, with demonstrators maintaining barricades through multiple days of confrontation. The ACLU-NJ issued statements condemning the use of force and calling for $20 million in increased state funding for the Detention and Deportation Defense Initiative. Sen. Kim highlighted the revolving door during oversight work, arguing it undermined accountability for detention conditions that triggered both the hunger strike and the confrontation that Mullin used to justify his airport threat.