Senate Confirms Mullin as Homeland Security Secretary

The Senate confirmed Markwayne Mullin as the nation's newest Homeland Security Secretary on Monday in a 54-45 vote, handing the former Oklahoma senator control of a 250,000-person department that is simultaneously shut down, short-staffed, and now deploying armed immigration agents to airport security checkpoints [1][2]. Mullin's first day on the job coincided with the arrival of hundreds of ICE officers at more than a dozen airports, a convergence that encapsulates the overlapping crises—political, operational, and constitutional—facing the Department of Homeland Security.

The Confirmation Vote

Mullin's confirmation largely followed party lines, but with notable exceptions. Two Democrats—John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico—voted in favor. Heinrich said he had worked with Mullin across the aisle and believed the department needed confirmed leadership during the shutdown [2][3]. On the Republican side, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky cast the lone dissenting vote, continuing a public feud with Mullin that intensified during the confirmation hearing, where Paul raised concerns about undisclosed foreign travel [2][4].

The 54-45 margin places Mullin's confirmation among the more contentious for DHS leaders, though not unprecedented. Kirstjen Nielsen was confirmed 62-37 in December 2017, while Alejandro Mayorkas scraped through 56-43 in February 2021 [5][6]. John Kelly, Trump's first-term DHS secretary, was confirmed 88-11 in January 2017, and Jeh Johnson won confirmation 78-16 under President Obama in 2013 [5]. The narrowing margins reflect deepening partisan divisions over immigration enforcement—the central mission Mullin has been tasked with expanding.

Who Is Markwayne Mullin?

Mullin, 48, is a member of the Cherokee Nation who built a plumbing business in eastern Oklahoma into a regional conglomerate before entering politics. He served in the U.S. House from 2013 to 2023, representing Oklahoma's 2nd Congressional District, before winning a Senate seat [7][8].

His résumé, however, lacks the national security or law enforcement credentials that characterized several predecessors. Mayorkas served as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services before becoming secretary. Nielsen was a cybersecurity expert who served as John Kelly's chief of staff at DHS. Jeh Johnson was the Pentagon's general counsel. Mullin served on the Senate Armed Services and Appropriations Committees but never sat on a committee focused on immigration or homeland security [8][9].

Critics have seized on this gap. The Union of Concerned Scientists questioned whether Mullin was prepared to manage FEMA's disaster response mission, noting he had no background in emergency management [9]. During his confirmation hearing, however, Mullin addressed the criticism directly, pledging to restructure—but not eliminate—FEMA and to rely on judicial warrants rather than administrative warrants for immigration enforcement at homes and businesses [2]. "I'm not scared of a challenge. I am scared of failure," Mullin told senators [2].

Supporters point to his reputation as a Trump ally who will aggressively enforce immigration law. The administration has framed Mullin as a replacement for Kristi Noem, who resigned amid bipartisan criticism over her management of the department and use of taxpayer funds [1][10].

The DHS Shutdown

Mullin inherits a department in partial shutdown since February 14, 2026—now more than five weeks and counting. The impasse centers on Democrats' refusal to approve DHS funding without conditions on immigration enforcement, including requirements that ICE agents identify themselves during operations and prohibitions on racial profiling [11][12].

The shutdown's most visible consequence has been at airports. Approximately 50,000 TSA officers have been working without pay, and more than 300 have quit outright [11]. Callout rates have soared: 55% of scheduled staff were absent at Houston Hobby International Airport on March 14, and 38% missed work at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson on March 19 [11][12]. Wait times at major hubs have exceeded two hours, with New Orleans advising passengers to arrive three hours early [12].

The DHS press office blamed Democrats for what it called a "reckless" shutdown that is "holding American travelers hostage" [13]. Democrats counter that the administration could end the crisis by accepting oversight provisions they say are standard accountability measures [12].

ICE at the Airports

Against this backdrop, President Trump announced on March 21 that ICE agents would deploy to airports beginning Monday, March 23—the same day as Mullin's confirmation [14][15]. Border czar Tom Homan confirmed the deployment, stating agents would serve as a "force multiplier" to help TSA "move those lines" [15][16].

DHS confirmed that hundreds of agents were sent to at least 14 airports, including John F. Kennedy International in New York, Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, and O'Hare International in Chicago [14][17]. Their stated duties included checking identification before screening areas, monitoring exits, and managing crowds to free up TSA officers for specialized screening work [16].

But from the first hours of deployment, the lines between security assistance and immigration enforcement blurred. Homan did not rule out immigration enforcement actions by ICE agents at airports [16]. Eyewitnesses recorded at least one arrest at San Francisco International Airport on Monday, and TechCrunch published footage of federal agents making what appeared to be immigration-related arrests [18]. Former acting ICE director John Sandweg warned: "If we start seeing ICE agents making immigration arrests of individuals as they try to board their airplane, we're going to have a lot of chaos" [16].

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Data as of Mar 24, 2026CSV

The Legal and Constitutional Debate

The deployment has ignited a sharp legal debate. ICE operates under 8 U.S.C. § 1357, which grants immigration officers authority to arrest and inspect individuals at ports of entry, and 8 C.F.R. § 287.8, which sets standards for searches and seizures by immigration officers [19]. The administration argues that airports, as transportation hubs with federal jurisdiction, fall squarely within ICE's operational authority.

The ACLU issued a statement calling the deployment unprecedented. "Never in our history has a president deployed armed agents to the airport to inspire fear among families," said Naureen Shah, the ACLU's director of policy and government affairs for immigration [20]. The organization demanded enforceable standards for agent conduct, requirements that agents identify themselves, and an end to what it called "indiscriminate stops and racial profiling" [20].

Legal scholars have raised Fourth Amendment concerns about TSA-ICE data sharing. Under 49 U.S.C. § 114(r), TSA can share Advance Passenger Information System data—names, biometrics, travel itineraries—with ICE for enforcement purposes [19]. But civil liberties attorneys argue that using security screening infrastructure as a dragnet for immigration enforcement converts a consensual administrative search (going through airport security) into a law enforcement encounter that requires probable cause under Riley v. California (2014) [19].

Senator Chuck Schumer warned that "untrained ICE agents lurking at our airports is asking for trouble" [16]. The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal workers union, stated plainly: "ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security. TSA officers spend months learning to detect explosives, weapons, and threats" [21].

Interior Enforcement: What the Data Shows

The airport deployment is part of a broader expansion of interior immigration enforcement. The empirical case for focusing on airports is mixed.

Visa overstays account for a significant share of the undocumented population. In fiscal year 2023, an estimated 510,000 people overstayed visas, compared to approximately 860,000 who entered through illegal border crossings—meaning overstays represented roughly 37% of new undocumented arrivals that year [22]. The total overstay rate for 2022 was 3.64%, more than double the rate of recent years, and DHS estimates approximately 5 million overstayers currently live in the United States [22][23].

Yet historically, airport operations have represented a small fraction of total deportations. More than five times as many resources—staff and budget—have been devoted to border enforcement compared to interior enforcement [22]. DHS does not have the capacity to locate and remove the millions of overstayers and instead relies on leads-based prioritization [23].

An estimated 14 million unauthorized immigrants lived in the United States as of mid-2023, according to Pew Research Center [24]. Research consistently shows that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, commit crimes at lower rates than the U.S.-born population [25][26]. As of February 2026, 73.6% of individuals in ICE detention—50,259 out of 68,289—had no criminal conviction [25].

The Economic Stakes

The industries most reliant on undocumented labor face significant uncertainty under expanded enforcement. Construction employs the largest share of undocumented workers—approximately 14-20% of the undocumented workforce—followed by agriculture (13%), accommodation and food services (12%), and manufacturing (11%) [27]. Within specific occupations, more than a third of plasterers, drywall installers, and roofers are undocumented, as are 42% of crop farmworkers [27][28].

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Data as of Mar 24, 2026CSV

The fiscal costs of mass deportation are substantial. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the "Big Beautiful Bill" directs $168 billion toward immigration and border enforcement, including $29.9 billion for ICE operations—tripling the agency's annual budget—and $45 billion for new detention facilities that could expand capacity to 125,000 beds [29][30]. The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates a 10-year mass deportation policy would cost $862 billion before economic feedback effects and $987 billion with them, while reducing GDP by 3.3% by 2034 [31]. The Cato Institute calculates that deportations would add nearly $1 trillion in costs to the Republican budget bill when accounting for lost tax revenue from removed workers [32].

The Economic Policy Institute warns that mass deportation would destroy millions of jobs for both immigrants and U.S.-born workers, with construction and child care facing the largest disruptions [33].

Resource Gaps and Operational Challenges

Rank-and-file DHS personnel face a convergence of pressures. The partial shutdown means roughly 100,000 of the department's 250,000-plus employees are working without pay [2]. ICE set a modern detention record in November 2025, holding more than 66,000 individuals, straining existing facilities [30].

The union representing federal workers has been vocal about the mismatch between political directives and operational reality. TSA officers undergo months of specialized training in threat detection that ICE agents do not have [21]. Deploying immigration agents to security lines may address a staffing number on paper, but it does not replace the expertise required for aviation security screening.

Mullin's stated agenda prioritizes enforcement expansion, but the most pressing challenge may be simpler: ending the shutdown and getting his workforce paid. Until Congress and the White House reach a funding agreement, the department will continue to hemorrhage experienced personnel while attempting to simultaneously expand its enforcement footprint.

What Comes Next

Mullin takes office at a moment when every major tension within DHS—immigration enforcement versus disaster response, border operations versus interior policing, security expertise versus political loyalty—has been compressed into a single crisis. The airport deployment has made these tradeoffs visible to millions of travelers. Whether Mullin can resolve the funding impasse, manage an unprecedented expansion of ICE's mission, and maintain aviation security standards will define his tenure from its opening hours.