The Trump administration has made no secret that it’s waging war on so-called “sanctuary cities”, places that limit cooperation with the government when it comes to immigration laws.
“No more Sanctuary Cities! They protect the Criminals, not the Victims. They are disgracing our Country… Working on papers to withhold all Federal Funding for any City or State that allows these Death Traps to exist!!!”
Since inauguration day, the administration has been cracking down on any city perceived to be sheltering immigrants, with executive orders withholding federal funding from them, launching legal action, and increasing ICE operations there.
That doesn’t seem to have deterred local politicians. For example, Zohran Mamdani confirmed in February that he wants to strengthen New York’s sanctuary laws.
But now, as per the new DHS head Markwayne Mullin, they may be about to break out the big guns. Mullin has confirmed that the government is explicitly planning a block on international flights arriving in “sanctuary cities”, which would mean crippling most of America’s busiest airports. Speaking on Fox News last night, he explained:
Markwayne Mullin: "We are currently drawing up plans to say, listen, 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." pic.twitter.com/ayx6lD0dtf
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 27, 2026
“Why are we processing international flights into the airport there? We are currently drawing up plans to say, listen, 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 either because they don’t want us to enforce immigration, but they want to process immigration at their facilities, and nothing about that makes sense to me.”
For an indication of which airports would be affected, see the Department of Justice’s official list of what it considers sanctuary cities, which includes almost every major American city.
What would this ban mean?
It goes without saying that banning international flights from these cities would be hugely disruptive to both American citizens and foreign tourists. It should also be underlined that preventing people on international flights from being processed by immigration would also be a de facto ban on most international departures from these airports.
If this policy were to be enacted, it’d mean international flights could only land at a handful of airports like Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, and Detroit. This, naturally, isn’t helpful if you want to fly into, say, California.
This policy is so chaotic that we can only assume it’s primarily a bluff designed to intimidate local officials, as the economic impact of banning international flights arriving in New York City and Los Angeles alone would be incalculable.
The ban would also immediately wreak havoc on airports that aren’t hit by the ban, which would then have to deal with a huge influx of passengers, along with a much higher number of domestic flights as unhappy travelers board a connecting flight to their final destination.
All of this sounds so insanely destructive that I can’t believe it could actually ever be enacted. But, if the Trump administration has taught us anything, it’s that they’re not afraid to burn the house down around them.
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