Like Kristi Noem, all indications counsel that Markwayne Mullin would be the nominal chief of DHS on paper, however on the bottom, Stephen Miller will proceed to run the mass deportation present
Donald Trump has nominated Republican Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin to interchange Division of Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem, who was ousted final week following a disastrous collection of Congressional hearings that continued to make clear her chaotic and lethal immigration enforcement operations, in addition to her personal shady dealings in workplace. Whereas Congressional Republicans like Speaker Mike Johnson (LA-04) have tried to border Mullin’s choice as a “course-correction” following Noem’s disastrous tenure, and not less than one Senate Democrat has praised him as “competent” and “sincere,” the details inform a distinct story.
Whereas Mullin might have publicly shared some pro-immigrant sentiments previously, he has been an enthusiastic supporter of Trump and anti-immigrant architect-in-chief Stephen Miller’s mass deportation agenda, together with help for violent immigration enforcement operations which have claimed American lives, the merciless concentrating on of immigrant pre-schoolers, and asserting U.S.-born kids needs to be deported with their immigrant dad and mom. Mullin has additionally been unapologetic in embracing the Huge Lie that Trump received the 2020 presidential election.
Like Noem, all indications counsel that Mullin would be the nominal chief of DHS on paper, however on the bottom, Miller will proceed to run the anti-immigrant present.
MULLIN DEFENDED VIOLENT ICE TACTICS THAT RESULTED IN THE BRUTAL DEATHS OF TWO U.S. CITIZENS
Mullin has tried to excuse and defend the brutal federal immigration enforcement actions that immediately resulted within the capturing killings of U.S. residents Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, together with echoing the administration’s private assaults as a part of an effort to stifle public sympathy for his or her deaths.
“Throughout an look on CNN’s State of the Union, the Oklahoma Republican rallied behind ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who fired three photographs right into a car in Minneapolis, killing 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good,” The Every day Beast reported in January. “When Tapper pressed Mullin on whether or not Good’s actions warranted her being killed, the senator mentioned sure, repeatedly insisting that her car was being utilized in a so-called ‘deadly method.’” He additional unfold the disinformation on his X account, writing that “There’s no debate, CNN. Everybody noticed the bodycam footage. Renee Good clearly struck the ICE agent together with her transferring car. The officer was justified to take motion.” That is merely not true. Video proof “reveals no indication that the agent who fired the photographs, Jonathan Ross, had been run over,” The New York Instances reported. “It additionally establishes how Mr. Ross put himself in a harmful place close to her car within the first place.” When Tapper instructed Mullin that Ross’ shot hit the facet of Good’s car – which means he was not in entrance of it – “Mullin dismissed the footage,” The Every day Beast continued.
Following the brutal killing of Pretti later that month, an unhinged Mullin disparaged the VA ICU nurse as a “deranged particular person,” falsely claiming that he got here in to “trigger max injury, with a loaded pistol, with an additional magazine that was fully loaded,” in accordance to The Bulwark. However as soon as once more, the video footage doesn’t lie. “The ICU nurse fatally shot by federal officers in Minneapolis was not armed on the time of his killing, regardless of the declare from officers, in keeping with witness footage,” Folks reported. “Pretti is seen standing amongst a bunch of protesters with each palms seen, whereas holding his cellphone in a single hand as an agent squirts pepper spray on the group.” Actually, Pretti had come to assistance from a lady who’d been pepper-sprayed when he was shot execution-style by a federal agent.
MULLIN ENDORSED MASS DEPORTATION, INCLUDING KICKING OUT U.S. CITIZEN KIDS WITH THEIR PARENTS
Mullin has been described as a “staunch defender” of the administration’s mass detention and deportation agenda, going as far as to argue that American-born kids needs to be deported alongside their undocumented dad and mom. Throughout a June 2025 interview with “Meet the Press,” Mullin was questioned about “what ought to occur to infants born in america whose dad and mom are deported, provided that the youngsters are U.S. residents underneath present legislation,” Reuters reported. “Nicely, they need to go the place their dad and mom are,” he responded. “Why wouldn’t you ship a toddler with their dad and mom? I imply, why would you need to separate them?”
Mullin was additionally “unmoved” by the administration’s merciless concentrating on of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, The Bulwark reported. “After photos emerged of a bunny hat–sporting Ramos being detained outdoors his faculty, the senator mentioned the press was intentionally deceptive their readers and viewers concerning the circumstances of the case.” Throughout an look on Newsmax, a chyron throughout Mullin’s section learn, “Pretend media finds good faux sob story.”
“This story that they’re blowing up about this 5-year-old child is so false, is so unfaithful that actually, there most likely needs to be some lawsuits filed towards this,” Mullin claimed. “As a result of I spoke to Secretary Noem yesterday and at present concerning the case. They’re not even reporting the details.”
Markwayne Mullin on the tried deportation of Liam Ramos, a 5-year-old baby of an undocumented immigrant in Minneapolis:”This story that they’re blowing up about this 5-year-old child is so false, is so unfaithful that actually, there most likely needs to be some lawsuits filed towards this.”
MULLIN DEFENDED AGGRESSIVE ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS AND CLAIMED CITIZEN PROTESTORS WERE PAID AGITATORS
Mullin has defended the administration’s violent navy invasion of American communities, stating that out-of-control federal immigration brokers have “the proper” to flood neighborhoods and claiming that People who’ve been exercising their proper to protest and observe these operations are being paid.
“If [Justice Department officials are] investigating [violence against Americans], they should be investigating the paid protesters, and who’s paying them to hinder federal officers from doing their job,” Mullin claimed in January. He then went on to counsel that People who’ve been exercising their proper to watch federal immigration actions are breaking the legislation. “What must be checked out is, why are these people pondering it’s OK to intervene with a federal officer?” he continued. “That could be a federal offense by itself. And but, they’re getting in the way in which of those people executing the job.”
The U.S. Structure is obvious: “The First Modification protects your proper to take images and movies of legislation enforcement officers performing their duties in public,” the ACLU mentioned. “This is applicable to ICE brokers, police, FBI, Nationwide Guard troops, and another authorities officers.” The ACLU notes that some officers retaliate “by making threats, spraying chemical irritants, and arresting individuals recording them.” We’ve got seen this play out in Minnesota in latest weeks, the place observers have been arrested by masked brokers for attempting to train their rights.
Mullin has additionally “attacked district courtroom judges for issuing rulings that had pressured ICE to gradual, cease, and even reverse a few of its most aggressive techniques,” The Bulwark continued. “Requested by Fox Information host Will Cain concerning the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, which proceeded regardless of a judicial order prohibiting the administration from sending him to that nation, Mullin went after the decide for overstepping what the senator considers his correct zone of authority.”
And, simply weeks after Trump’s inauguration, Mullin, a member of the Cherokee nation, mocked worries that Native People have been being focused by ICE. “For Indigenous People it’s unthinkable, however true,” Idaho Capital Solar reported final month. “ICE is arresting, detaining Native People.” Amongst Native People focused in these “Kavanaugh stops” embody “Northern Publicity” actress Elaine Miles.
MULLIN HAD PRO-IMMIGRANT VIEWS – BEFORE HE DIDN’T
Identical to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Rollins beforehand made statements that seem to run counter to Trump and Miller’s mass deportation agenda, corresponding to endorsing a proposal that agreed to elevated border safety, together with a wall, in alternate for some reduction for Dreamers. “After a convention name with POTUS. I consider his supply is a win-win for each side: #nationalsecurity and #DACA,” then-Rep. Mullin mentioned in January 2019. “The Democrats’ primary subject for years has been fixing #DACA. Now, they’ve a chance to repair it. Let’s see what they do with it. Or, we’ll see if it’s actually simply all politics to them.” However this and different proposals weren’t torpedoed by Democrats, however fairly by Stephen Miller. Later that very same yr, Mullin touted the financial advantages of immigration whereas selling an upcoming podcast, stating that whereas the U.S. had a “nice economic system now,” the nation was dealing with “a scarcity of employees which are wanted to fill obtainable openings.” However in an about-face following his election to the U.S. Senate, Mullin decried reduction for undocumented immigrants like Dreamers, claiming in 2024 {that a} vote for then-Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris “is a vote for MASS AMNESTY.” Mullin additionally touched on white nationalist speaking factors by claiming that Harris was “extra concerned with giving citizenship to illegals than the security and sovereignty of America’s borders.”
Within the Senate, Mullin has continued to cement his hardline credentials by additional concentrating on U.S.-born kids – and certainly the very which means of being an American – by cosponsoring the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2021, which sought to limit the 160-year-old constitutional precept that everybody born within the U.S. is a U.S. citizen. That very same yr, Mullin cosponsored the Stay in Mexico Act, which sought to codify coverage underneath the primary Trump administration that consultants mentioned violated non-refoulement obligations underneath the Refugee Conference by returning asylum-seekers to potential persecution and torture.
In 2023, Mullin cosponsored two payments looking for to additional prohibit due course of rights and diminish our nation’s potential to supply refuge to the oppressed. The “deceptively titled” Hold Our Communities Secure Act would have granted “limitless energy” to DHS “to detain noncitizens for an indefinite time frame, with no alternative for a bond listening to,” Physicians for Human Rights mentioned. The Asylum Abuse Discount Act “would have prohibited migrants from making use of for asylum on the border, requiring potential candidates to as an alternative journey to a U.S. embassy or consulate for an interview with an asylum officer,” in accordance to the Texas A&M College Faculty of Legislation. This and a 2021 model of the invoice have been favorably acquired by Tanton community anti-immigrant teams CIS, FAIR, and NumbersUSA.
MULLIN ENDORSED THE BIG LIE THAT FALSELY CLAIMS TRUMP WON THE 2020 ELECTION
Mullin was a proponent of the Huge Lie falsely claiming that Trump really received the 2020 presidential election. “Shortly after the election, Mullin joined a case earlier than the Supreme Court docket calling for all of the votes for president in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — states that have been narrowly received by Democrats — to be discarded, with a purpose to change the result of the election,” GovTrack mentioned. In a phone city corridor simply hours earlier than the January 6 riot, Mullin continued to advertise the Huge Lie by stating that he believed the outcomes have been “completely” not sincere. “Mullin acknowledged that officers together with former U.S. Lawyer Basic William Barr, a Trump appointee, have mentioned there was no proof of widespread voter fraud,” Public Radio Tulsa reported January 5.
“On January 6, 2021 within the hours after the violent riot on the Capitol, Mullin voted to omit Arizona and/or Pennsylvania from the counting of presidential electors, which may have altered the result of the election in Trump’s favor,” GovTrack continued. Following Trump’s reelection in 2024 and subsequent pardoning of insurrectionists who attacked police and ransacked the U.S. Capitol constructing of their effort to dam decertification of the election outcomes, Mullin deflected outcry towards the president regardless of claiming that people who assault legislation enforcement “must pay for that, with out query.”
Simply as lately as two weeks in the past, Mullin supplied nonsensical reasoning to defend the president’s “huge Iranian lie,” The Every day Beast reported, persevering with to substantiate Mullin will defend all administration actions regardless of how outrageous or false.
