Trump ally bringing his immigration policies to DHS

Sen. Markwayne Mullin does not sit on any committees with direct authority over immigration or the Department of Homeland Security. But his record on the issues the high-profile agency handles signals that he will bring a hardline approach to his new role atop the department.

In recent months, Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican who President Donald Trump nominated last week to take the reins at DHS, has waded into the controversial waters of the White House’s immigration policies. Trump announced Mullin as his pick concurrently with saying Kristi Noem would exit the position, becoming the first cabinet secretary of the president’s second term to leave.

He called Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse killed by federal immigration agents earlier this year, a “deranged individual.” He co-sponsored legislation after the killing of Renee Good at the hands of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent that would increase penalties against people who resist or assault law enforcement officers with vehicles. And he has expressed skepticism about birthright citizenship, a constitutional right that Trump has tried to end.

“I think he’s no-nonsense,” Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation, said in an interview. “It’s going to be about the mission for him. It won’t be about himself.”

Nomination hearings for Mullin are expected to start as soon as next Wednesday. If confirmed by his Senate peers, he will replace Noem, who had a controversial tenure at DHS, which includes ICE, Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among other subagencies.

Unless there is a breakthrough in negotiations in the coming weeks, Mullin would also be ascending to the top of an agency in the midst of a government shutdown. DHS funding lapsed Feb. 14 and Democrats have repeatedly voted against bills to restore its funding, citing concerns about the agency’s immigration enforcement practices.

Based on Mullin’s support for hard-charging immigration policies and his close ties to Trump, Democrats do not anticipate any major breakthroughs for their agenda with Noem out.

“He’s given no indication that he plans the kind of reforms that the American people are demanding,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I have hope that he’ll rethink some of his positions as we go through the confirmation process. But I have no factual basis for hope.”

Mullin has not yet laid out detailed plans for his time atop the department, and he will have to first get through a multiweek confirmation process with his Senate peers.

“We’re wanting to get the Department of Homeland Security working for the American people, and that’s going to be our focus,” Mullin told reporters last week after his nomination was announced. “We’re open to new ideas, and doing things that, as I said, takes care of the job we need to get done.”

Mullin, a former MMA fighter, a rancher and owner of his own plumbing business, came to Congress in 2013, riding an anti-establishment wave and branding himself “not a politician,” in campaign ads. He initially vowed to only serve three terms, but reneged and did a 10-year stint in the House before running to serve out the remainder of Sen. Jim Inhofe’s term in 2022.  

Mullin is friendly and well-liked on the Hill, often seen (and heard) bouncing a rubber ball through the halls of Congress. The lone senator without a bachelor’s degree, Mullin heads the Legislative Branch Appropriations subcommittee and sits on the Armed Services, Indian Affairs and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees. 

Mullin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

He has been a valuable mouthpiece for the Trump administration on cable news in recent years and an at-times pugilistic presence in the Senate. At a hearing in 2023, Mullin challenged a union leader testifying before the committee to a physical fight.

“Stand your butt up then,” Mullin said to Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, before Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., intervened. 

Mullin has been tapped to take over DHS at a time of intense scrutiny. Public approval of Trump’s immigration policies dipped after the killings of Pretti and Good, though those numbers have recently rebounded slightly. Noem’s leadership during those incidents, as well as her use of taxpayer funds for private jets and a pricey ad campaign, drew questions from both sides of the aisle. 

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing two days before her firing, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., berated Noem and called her leadership of DHS a “disaster.”

Though Democrats and critics of Trump’s border policy broadly called for Noem’s removal, most are not expecting meaningful change with Mullin at the helm.

Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of the Hispanic Federation, a nonprofit advocacy group that had called for Noem’s ouster, said Mullin would likely be a “yes man.”

“He’s going to be very much agreeable with whatever President Trump or the White House is going to say with regards to immigration,” Miranda said in an interview.

Republicans, meanwhile, have highlighted areas where Mullin could make improvements, though they have offered diverging visions of what his tenure could look like. 

Tillis, a fierce critic of Trump advisor Stephen Miller, in an appearance on CNN called Mullin “one of the most independent people I’ve had the privilege of working with,” and suggested the Oklahoman would tell Trump’s deputy to “stay in his lane and let him lead the agency.”

On deportations, Tillis said he believed Mullin “recognizes that it’s quality over quantity. We want to go after the most dangerous people, the gang member, the drug traffickers, the murderers, the rapists.”

In a letter to Trump on Monday in support of Mullin, the GOP Main Street Caucus, a group of pragmatic House Republicans, said similarly that DHS should be focusing immigration enforcement efforts on the “worst criminal offenders.”

“Senator Mullin has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to border security,” states the letter, which was signed by 49 members of the caucus. “His familiarity with the legislative process and his longstanding support for pro-America policies make him well-suited to lead DHS at this critical moment. We are confident he will bring the focus and discipline necessary to further our shared priorities.”

Heritage’s Ries, on the other hand, said focusing on only the “worst of the worst” under Noem’s leadership was insufficient. She said she hoped Mullin will help accelerate DHS’s mass deportation efforts to get more undocumented immigrants out of the county. 

And Sen. James Lankford, in a post to X on Tuesday, noted the need to reform FEMA, which under Noem struggled with budget constraints, reduced staffing and a lengthy disaster recovery backlog. 

Lankford, a fellow Oklahoma Republican, said Mullin would “make a fantastic Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.” 

“With the most secure border in years, now is the time to build on that progress and continue strengthening the safety of the American people,” Lankford wrote in the post, which included a photograph of the two Oklahomans laughing.