Trump administration ‘drawing up plans’ to stop processing international flights in sanctuary cities | ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
The Trump administration has threatened to shut down international flights in major cities across the country in response to protests against immigration enforcement.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday that the administration was “preparing plans” to take action in response to days of clashes at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in New Jersey.
They plan to withdraw immigration processing services from cities with so-called sanctuary laws that prohibit or limit local police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.
Democratic lawmakers arrived and joined demonstrators in criticizing conditions at the Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark, while questioning the provision of federal immigration services at Newark Liberty international airport.
“If it were ours, we would handle it, but it is the property of the city. They also prevent our employees from entering and exiting the city.” [ICE] facility. So why do we operate international flights to the airport there?” he said In an interview with Fox.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which provide security and immigration enforcement at airports, are part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), along with ICE.
Over the past five days, hundreds of immigrants detained at the privately operated Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark have gone on hunger and work strikes, demanding improved conditions, medical care and advancement of their immigration cases. Immigration authorities violently clashed with protesters there Tuesday evening and used pepper spray and Tasers.
The strike at the facility and the clashes outside have increased tensions between Democratic politicians who oppose the facility and the Trump administration. U.S. senator Andy Kim was pepper-sprayed by ICE officers on Monday.
Mullin accused Kim and other Democratic politicians of “spreading smears” about ICE and engaging in political actions. And during an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday evening, Mullin threatened to end international flight operations in “sanctuary” cities.
“If they’re not going to let us go out and arrest the ‘worst of the worst’… then why are we operating international flights into the airport there?” Mullin asked in the Fox interview, adding: “They’re drawing up plans right now to say, listen, in these sanctuary cities where the local radical left Democrats won’t let us do our job and enforce federal laws, then we shouldn’t be operating international flights into their cities.”
Sanctuary policies do not prevent ICE operations, but instead limit some cooperation between local authorities and federal immigration enforcement.
The hunger strike continued at the Delaney Hall facility on Wednesday. New York congressman Adriano Espaillat managed to enter the detention center for a surveillance visit.
“The conditions, the food conditions are terrible. We think they are not getting medical services. We think they are overcrowded and deprived of their basic rights,” Espaillat said. “We will continue our fight to close this place”
