United States (US) Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the Trump administration is drawing up plans to stop processing international travelers and cargo at \u200bmajor US airports in “sanctuary cities” that have declined to co-operate with an immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n
The \u200cmove could effectively halt international air travel and commerce at major airports in Democratic states, with millions of foreign tourists expected to stream in for next month’s start of the FIFA World Cup.<\/p>\n
Mullin told Fox News\u00a0Channel’s \u200bSean Hannity in an interview broadcast on Tuesday that he had met White House \u200bofficials but emphasized no decision had been made whether to proceed.<\/p>\n
“We are currently \u2060which we’re not initiating yet but we’re currently drawing up plans,” Mullin said.<\/p>\n
“We shouldn’t be processing \u200binternational flights into their cities,” he added, in a reference to sanctuary cities, where he suggested “local \u200bradical left Democrats aren’t allowing us to do our job and enforce federal laws.”
\nLast week, Reuters\u00a0and other media reported that Mullin had privately told US travel executives his department could opt to stop customs and immigrations processing \u200bof international travelers.
\nThe US Justice Department published a list of so-called sanctuary cities and states that \u200bincluded many cities with major international airports.
\nAmong these were Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Newark, \u200cSeattle \u2060and San Francisco.
\nMullin first publicly made the threat in April during a dispute over funding for his department but said on Tuesday the idea was under active consideration.
\nDemocrats say reforms are needed to rein in abuses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), including the killing of \u200btwo US citizens in \u200bMinneapolis in January.
\nThe US \u2060Travel Association, which represents major airlines, hotels, car rental firms and other travel companies, told Reuters on Friday its representatives had met Mullin.
\nMullin “confirmed his \u200bprevious comments that the administration is considering a withdrawal of CBP officers \u200bfrom international airports \u2060in certain sanctuary cities,” US Travel added in a statement to Reuters.
\nIt also flagged the devastating consequences for the travel industry and communities dependent on international visitors.
\nMore than 50 million international travelers arrived at \u2060the \u200bthree major New York airports alone last year.
\nReducing customs staffing \u200bat major airports would disrupt operations significantly for carriers, travelers and the flow of international cargo, Airlines for US, a \u200bgrouping of major passenger and cargo airlines, said last week.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":30640,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-35581","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The \u200cmove could effectively halt international air travel and commerce at major airports in Democratic states.","published_date":"","news_description":"The \u200cmove could effectively halt international air travel and commerce at major airports in Democratic states.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35584,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35581\/revisions\/35584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=35581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}