Markwayne Mullin

Markwayne Mullin is opening new enforcement fronts four months before the midterms. On July 17 he launched a campaign alongside Trump to scrub noncitizens from voter rolls, citing DHS data showing 250,000-plus noncitizens registered across California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada and 400,000 deceased voters across 23 states. He threatened state officials with prosecution and loss of federal grants if they refuse to use the SAVE database for citizenship verification. Days earlier, DHS moved to condition roughly $1.1 billion in preparedness and antiterrorism grants on states adopting hand-marked paper ballots, 5 percent manual audits, and SAVE database checks, with noncompliant states facing a 20 percent funding withholding.

Mullin briefly suspended ICE traffic stops on July 14 after three fatal shooting incidents in one week in Houston, Biddeford, Maine, and St. Augustine, Florida, two of whose victims were not intended targets. Trump overrode the pause via Truth Social the next day, calling traffic stops essential crime-fighting tools, and Mullin publicly aligned, saying he and the president were "on the same page." He pledged body cameras for all arrest teams and extended recruit training to 71 days. Senator Susan Collins pressured him to cease non-urgent stops after the Biddeford shooting, and Maine Governor Janet Mills called for reform or abolition of ICE.

The deportation surge continues at scale. ICE hit 10,000 arrests in five days under a White House-mandated 2,000-per-day standard, with Mullin claiming 2026 removals will surpass 2025 totals within six weeks. Detention reached roughly 39,000 in June, up from 30,000 in February, with 80 percent of officers on arrest operations and many working seven-day weeks. Two-thirds of at-large arrests involved individuals with no criminal record. Border Patrol staffing reached a record 21,471 agents, targeting 25,000.

Mullin is fighting lawsuits on multiple fronts. The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund and Public Citizen sued him and Secretary Rubio over alleged sharing of confidential asylum records with the Iranian government through monthly meetings at the Pakistani embassy. David Streever sued DHS alleging ICE agents tracked and intimidated him after a critical email to then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. Mullin denied the agency "squashes" free speech.

He won a Supreme Court victory in Mullin v. Doe, a 6-3 ruling giving DHS broad discretion to terminate TPS, clearing removal of protections for 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. Mullin directed affected migrants to seek permanent residency or accept a plane ticket and roughly $2,100 in repatriation assistance. He testified that 450,000 migrant children released under Biden remain unaccounted for, with 147,000 traced, some in trafficking rings, and plans to deport 500-plus ORR-held unaccompanied children. Senator Ron Wyden condemned the deportations as executive overreach.

Mullin endorsed Trump's nomination of his senior adviser Lance Schroyer as the first permanent ICE director since 2017 after the White House rejected his initial choice. Schroyer has Stephen Miller's backing but lacks direct immigration enforcement experience, and a Senate confirmation fight lies ahead. Mullin is also clearing a FEMA funding backlog, approving $197 million for North Carolina Hurricane Helene recovery, and condemned Governor Tim Walz for pardoning a Laos national convicted of repeatedly raping a 10-year-old one week before his scheduled deportation, calling the pardon "horrific."