In May 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was drawing up plans to halt international flights to so-called sanctuary cities.
The term "sanctuary city" typically describes a jurisdiction where local authorities limit or avoid cooperation with federal immigration authorities like Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The U.S. Justice Department published a list of "Sanctuary Jurisdictions" in October 2025 that included Democrat-led cities like New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The claim circulated as protesters clashed with federal immigration officers at an ICE facility in New Jersey.
On May 28, 2026, an X user wrote, "Trump's DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin just announced that they are 'drawing up plans' to block all international flights into blue cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago."
Trump's DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin just announced that they are "drawing up plans" to block all international flights into blue cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. pic.twitter.com/5VVwwg8IGc
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) May 28, 2026
The claim also circulated on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived).
At the time of this writing, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin had told Fox News his department would not "halt" flights but that it might need to move Customs and Border Protection officers away from airports to assist at ICE facilities in cities where local law enforcement would not help ensure federal agents' safety in the face of protests. In practice, Mullin said that could mean nobody would be available to process and admit passengers arriving at those points of entry.
Mullin's plan faced criticism from the U.S. Travel Association, a national nonprofit that represents the interests of the travel industry. In a news release, the association argued that a lack of federal immigration officers would primarily affect passengers arriving into the U.S. and could result in international flights being moved or canceled.
Because it remained to be seen whether the plan would effectively, if not directly, halt flights, we leave this claim unrated.
When asked whether, how and when the DHS might implement Mullin's plan, a department spokesperson referred us to Mullin's remarks to Fox News on May 27, 2026, where Mullin said the department was "drawing up plans" to stop immigration processing in cities where "local radical left Democrats" were hampering immigration enforcement efforts.
We asked the White House press office whether U.S. President Donald Trump supported Mullin's plan and await a reply.
Mullin has discussed the plan to pull federal immigration officers from airports in sanctuary cities in multiple Fox News interviews.
First, in an April 6, 2026, interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, he said, "Some of these cities have international airports. If they're a sanctuary city, should they really be processing customs into their city?" He continued (time code 6:51):
Right now, remember, the Democrats are wanting to defund Customs and Border Patrol. Well, who processes those individuals when they walk off the plane? So I'm going to have to be forced to make hard decisions: Who's willing to work with us and partner with us?
Fox News' reporting at the time framed the plan as "leverage" against sanctuary cities, although Mullin himself did not use that word.
Mullin appeared to have continued to develop his plan in the following weeks. On May 27, Mullin told Fox News host Sean Hannity (time code 04:17, emphasis ours):
We are currently — which, we're not initiating yet — but 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 to us to enforce immigration but they want us to process immigration at their facilities? Nothing about that makes sense to me.
On May 28, when Fox News host Brian Kilmeade asked Mullin whether there would be "no more international flights" to sanctuary city airports, Mullin said (time code 03:50, emphasis ours) that the plan was a result of DHS needing to reassign officers in cities whose local law enforcement did not cooperate with DHS:
No, I wouldn't say all of them. I'm saying, when we have situations what's happening in New Jersey right now, when we have to prioritize where we put federal employees because local law enforcement won't help protect their streets — not federal street, city streets — and keep them from barricading and causing harm to our employees, then we have to decide where we're going to prioritize our federal employees so we're not going to halt the flights but we're saying it, we just won't be able to process them because we don't have officers there, we're having to pull out our Customs and Border Patrol officers that process these flights and put them in these facilities to help protect our employees coming out of work.
Critics skeptical of plan's scope
It was unclear how much support Mullin's plan had within the rest of the Trump administration.
On May 21, a week before Mullin spoke about the plan on Fox News, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said in a congressional hearing (time code 1:27:33) that he was "not familiar" with Mullin's plan but would like to question the secretary on it.
Duffy added (time code 1:28:03):
We have people from around the world and around the country that need to be able to fly into all different kinds of places. We shouldn't shut down air travel in a state that doesn't agree with our politics, it's, again, because, by the way, that rule will be the reversed. We all switch spots at some point, hopefully not too soon, Mr. Chairman.
That same day, The Atlantic reported that Mullin had convened a meeting of airline and travel industry executives in Washington, D.C., to say that he was considering reducing CBP staffing at major international airports in Oregon, New York City and Dulles International Airport, near Washington, D.C.
According to The Atlantic's anonymous sources, the plan had "alarmed" the gathered travel executives, who reportedly said that passengers and cargo could not easily be rerouted to other airports and feared huge knock-on effects. Snopes does not rely on anonymous sources and could not independently verify The Atlantic's report.
The U.S. Travel Association reportedly confirmed the meeting to The Associated Press. We contacted the association to confirm that the meeting happened and await a reply.
The association said in a May 29, 2026, news release that removing Customs and Border Patrol officers from Newark International Airport in New Jersey, as Mullin appeared to suggest on May 28, would cause "immediate and lasting harm" and would "impact more Americans traveling home from abroad than international visitors."
On May 27 Juliette Kayyem, a former Obama-administration DHS official, said (archived) on X that Mullin's alleged plan would lead to canceled planes, disrupt "red and blue voters" and have "no impact on immigration policy."
In sum, while Mullin had reportedly considered removing federal immigration officers from sanctuary cities since the start of his tenure, it remained unclear at the time of this writing whether he had support from the Trump administration to carry it out. It also remained unclear who would feel the effects of Mullin's proposed plan, with travel industry bodies warning that both U.S. and international travelers would be affected.