Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is trying to bring his department out from under the shadow of his divisive predecessor Kristi Noem, but he is facing hits from both sides of the aisle as he does so.
Less than a month into his tenure atop the Department of Homeland Security, the former Republican lawmaker from Oklahoma has attempted to stabilize it by getting rid of some of Noem’s management processes and reshaping the department’s organizational chart. In the past week, he brought back a deputy who had clashed with Noem and dismissed a Noem appointee who’d been accused of incompetence.
Mullin also reversed a much-criticized Noem policy in which the secretary had to personally approve contracts worth more than $100,000. DHS has also said it’s modifying its messaging strategy to “humanize” the department and feature Mullin more regularly on cable news and social media to “directly communicate” what the department is doing.
For Mullin’s backers, those moves — in particular the reversal of the contract review policy — are a sign he is turning the department around. But his approach so far has brought him criticism from both Democrats who say Mullin’s changes don’t go far enough, and from immigration hardliners in President Donald Trump’s political base who argue Mullin’s rhetoric is undermining the president’s promised immigration crackdown.
“During this grace period, things have happened that have been counter to the mass deportation cause, and nothing seems to have happened that is in favor of the mass deportation cause,” said Mike Howell, who leads the Oversight Project, a far-right watchdog group. He added that there’s still confusion about Mullin’s stances.
The tension came to a head this week after Mullin insisted in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Wednesday that America “is a nation of immigrants” that wants “legal immigration.” Prominent far-right activists who favor restricting both authorized and unauthorized immigration to the United States criticized Mullin’s comments on social media. Some argued the comments showed Mullin was the wrong pick to helm DHS.
“Told you it was a bad appointment,” wrote far-right commentator Mike Cernovich on X Wednesday night.
The sharp reactions underscore what people close to the White House, administration officials and lawmakers concede is a central challenge for Mullin: how to shore up the department’s credibility while avoiding alienating any key constituency in the president’s political base.
“Is it simply an image issue, or is it also an image and a policy issue? I think they’re trying to navigate all of that,” said a person close to the White House, who like others in this story was granted anonymity so they could speak freely about dynamics in the administration. “That’s going to be his biggest challenge, dealing with what the base wants, but also what the donors and advisers want.”
Polling still shows that Americans disapprove of the president’s approach to immigration.
Mullin also continues to face the complexities of a weekslong shutdown of the department over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Legislation to end the shutdown has stalled. Republican leaders in Congress say they are renewing the push to fund DHS next week, but it’s unclear if enough Republicans and Democrats will vote to finally break the impasse.
Trump himself acknowledged the tall order ahead of Mullin in remarks at a White House Easter Brunch in March, where he said he plucked Mullin from a safe seat in the Senate to “three years of turmoil at DHS.”
DHS said in a statement that Mullin “has already hit the ground running on President Trump’s mission to secure our borders, deport illegal alien criminals, and protect the homeland,” and added that the secretary “is eager to continue building on the Trump administration’s historic wins to make America safe again.”
In addition to the pressure from the right, Mullin faces other entreaties from Democrats, who are looking to make immigration an albatross around the Trump administration’s neck going into the November midterms. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called the changes Mullin has made on contracting at DHS “largely superficial and cosmetic,” and said he wanted to see Mullin make more changes to the ways in which immigration enforcement is being carried out.
“I see no basic change in the substance of policies, which are supposed to be going after the worst of the worst,” Blumenthal said. “He hasn’t renounced the basic approach of this administration.”
Democrats continue to press Mullin for information about alleged corruption at DHS under Noem. Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee sent a letter earlier this month to the department asking for records about Noem adviser Corey Lewandowski’s interactions with two department contractors.
Texas Democrats, as well as some on the House National Resources Committee, have called on Mullin to reconsider a move by Customs and Border Protection to install “smart border technology” in Big Bend National Park, a stretch of mountain and desert along the U.S. border with Mexico that is renowned for its unique fauna and flora.
The announcement Thursday night that acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Todd Lyons will retire also serves as a test for Mullin, potentially allowing him and the president to change the trajectory of an agency that has been a lightning rod of criticism amid the administration’s immigration crackdown.
Most congressional Republicans say Mullin deserves credit for the necessary tweaks to the department he has already made.
“We have already seen dramatic change in terms of money flowing from FEMA,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who was one of Noem’s biggest foes in the Senate. He also flagged the absence of major clashes between ICE agents and protesters as seen in Minneapolis earlier this year.
“Those are all things that but for the change in leadership wouldn't have occurred,” Tillis said. “I expect more, but I think people judge them too soon to probably come from people that have never run a large complex organization.”
Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee also voiced confidence in Mullin. Garbarino said he was meeting with the secretary next week and praised the “great job” he had done so far, also noting the moves on contracts.
An administration official said that several procedural moves still need to be made. A number of holdovers from Noem’s tenure remain at DHS. And Mullin has yet to revise the mechanism for approving invoices, which has also slowed the disbursement of money. But there is optimism, the official added, given Mullin’s stated priority to empower the leaders of agencies under his department’s remit.
“There’s just a lot more qualified leadership,” the official said. “And it just feels like you’re just not going to be asked to do something stupid.”
Republicans on Capitol Hill acknowledge that the window is limited.
“We’ve got to give him time to get his feet on the ground,” said Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.V.), noting that Mullin has been in office just over three weeks.
Justice added: “Three months and a day, if we’re sputtering and everything else — different animal.”
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