By Purushottam Dhakal, LOS ANGELES:- The Trump administration is planning to block immigration at airports that are designated as sanctuary cities, Homeland Security Secretary Mark Ruffin Mullen said.
The Trump administration is preparing to block immigration at airports after the Democratic-led cities refused to work with the White House on crackdowns on illegal immigration.
These plans would essentially halt all international passenger and cargo arrivals at major airports in Democratic-controlled states. Millions of foreign sports fans are expected to flock to the US for the FIFA World Cup, which begins in June.
In an interview with Fox News, Mullin said, “We are making plans but no decision has been made on whether to move forward.”
Mullin, who took over as Homeland Security Secretary after Christie Noam was removed from her post in March, has stressed that officials should not process international flights to so-called sanctuary cities.
“Democrats are stopping us from doing our job and enforcing federal laws,” Mullin said.
The Trump administration has sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to several Democratic-controlled cities as part of a crackdown on irregular immigration and mass deportations.
The Trump administration has also previously deployed federal National Guard troops to some cities, including Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
While there is no definitive definition of a ‘sanctuary city’, the US Department of Justice published a list of cities in August 2025 that it says “obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration laws.” The majority of the cities are run by Democrats.
Major cities that have plans to restrict immigration include Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Newark, Seattle, and San Francisco.
The Trump administration’s radical immigration crackdown has sparked intense protests in many of those cities. Two American citizens were shot and killed in Minnesota during a standoff with ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents.
Democrats in Congress had blocked funding for the Department of Homeland Security in protest of ICE and what they saw as excessive immigration enforcement policies. The standoff closed the department until President Donald Trump signed a funding bill in late April.
Mullin’s threat to remove immigration officers from some international airports a few weeks ago has alarmed the travel industry.
Major airlines have condemned Mullin’s threat to remove immigration officers. In a statement Friday, the group said it “believes such a move would have devastating consequences for the travel industry and communities that depend on international travel.”
In a statement, the Airlines for America trade group said: “Reducing CBP staff at major airports would have a devastating impact on the airline and tourism industries, causing significant operational disruptions to carriers, passengers and the flow of international cargo.”
Opposition to the plans has also come from within the Trump administration. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told a congressional hearing last week that “it would be a bad idea to start imposing travel restrictions based on political considerations.”
“We have people all over the world and all over the country who need to be able to fly to all kinds of places. We shouldn’t be shutting down air travel in a state that doesn’t agree with our politics,” Duffy said.