OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
11:40 AM – Thursday, April 9, 2026
Newly sworn-in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin has moved quickly to assert his leadership, rolling out major changes within weeks of taking office, including plans to secure funding for the department during the ongoing partial government shutdown.
Since his swearing-in late last month, the Washington Examiner reported on Thursday that Mullin got to work right away to combat Democrat lawmakers’ “political theatre.”
“For 49 days, the Democrats have held our DHS employees hostage with their political theatre,” the secretary posted in an X post giving a two-week update last Friday. “It has to stop.”
Thursday marks the 55th day of the lengthy partial shutdown, as Congress still remains gridlocked on a plan to fund the department.
“I’m spending the majority of my time working with members in the House and the Senate and the White House — and by the way, the president is fully engaged — trying to get our great employees at DHS paid,” Mullin stated in a video last week. “For some reason, the Democrats — and I’m not trying to be ugly, I’m just being factual. They will not fund our Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents or our ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents.”
To ease the burden on TSA officers — who had missed two full paychecks during the ongoing funding lapse — Secretary Mullin has since proposed scaling back certain screening protocols at major international hubs. Mullin framed the move as a pragmatic necessity for an exhausted workforce, while specifically targeting airports in “sanctuary cities.”
He argued that because these Democrat-led jurisdictions maintain policies that limit federal immigration cooperation, the department is justified in adjusting security standards to prioritize resources elsewhere.
“It’s an option,” Mullin told reporters in North Carolina. “If cities are going to sit there and say that they’re not going to enforce immigration policies, then I’ll repeat myself and say it doesn’t make any sense for us to process international travelers through that city.”
Nonetheless, on April 3rd, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “Liberating the Department of Homeland Security From the Democrat-Caused Shutdown.” The order directed the Treasury to immediately release funds to pay all DHS employees, including TSA officers who had missed the two full pay periods.
In late January, Congress passed a two-week stopgap bill to keep the DHS funded while negotiating a more permanent plan, as Democrats insisted on major reforms for federal immigration agencies, including much harsher restrictions and stronger oversight of the agency. Legislators failed to reach an agreement, however, by the February 14th deadline, leading to a funding lapse for agencies like TSA, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — among others.
Meanwhile, as part of his transition into the role, Mullin has also been reviewing DHS spending and contracts to “eliminate waste and ensure alignment with core priorities,” sources say. According to the Associated Press, Mullin has paused new ICE plans to purchase additional warehouses for conversion into large-scale detention facilities, while scrutinizing contracts initiated under former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
However, this temporary pause has since drawn criticism from some quarters, with detractors arguing that Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) provided substantial prior funding for ICE operations and detention expansion — enough to support rigorous enforcement without rushing potentially costly or locally disruptive projects.
Nonetheless, Mullin’s team has signaled the review aims to deliver smarter, more effective results for border security and deportations, working with communities rather than imposing top-down
“ICE can afford to overpay $50 million for a warehouse because Congress saw fit to hand it essentially a blank check to expand detention centers — $45 BILLION to be spent through the end of FY 2029,” Aaron Reichlin-Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote in an X post on Tuesday. “That extra money likely bought off any qualms from the owners as well.”
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