Like Kristi Noem, all indications suggest that Markwayne Mullin will be the nominal leader of DHS on paper, but on the ground, Stephen Miller will continue to run the mass deportation show
Donald Trump has nominated Republican Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin to replace Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was ousted last week following a disastrous series of Congressional hearings that continued to shed light on her chaotic and deadly immigration enforcement operations, as well as her own shady dealings in office. While Congressional Republicans like Speaker Mike Johnson (LA-04) have tried to frame Mullin’s selection as a “course-correction” following Noem’s disastrous tenure, and at least one Senate Democrat has praised him as “competent” and “honest,” the facts tell a different story.
While Mullin may have publicly shared some pro-immigrant sentiments in the past, he has been an enthusiastic supporter of Trump and anti-immigrant architect-in-chief Stephen Miller’s mass deportation agenda, including support for violent immigration enforcement operations that have claimed American lives, the cruel targeting of immigrant pre-schoolers, and asserting U.S.-born children should be deported with their immigrant parents. Mullin has also been unapologetic in embracing the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Like Noem, all indications suggest that Mullin will be the nominal leader of DHS on paper, but on the ground, Miller will continue to run the anti-immigrant show.
MULLIN DEFENDED VIOLENT ICE TACTICS THAT RESULTED IN THE BRUTAL DEATHS OF TWO U.S. CITIZENS
Mullin has attempted to excuse and defend the brutal federal immigration enforcement actions that directly resulted in the shooting killings of U.S. citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, including echoing the administration’s personal attacks as part of an effort to stifle public sympathy for their deaths.
“During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, the Oklahoma Republican rallied behind ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who fired three shots into a vehicle in Minneapolis, killing 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good,” The Daily Beast reported in January. “When Tapper pressed Mullin on whether Good’s actions warranted her being killed, the senator said yes, repeatedly insisting that her vehicle was being used in a so-called ‘lethal manner.’” He further spread the disinformation on his X account, writing that “There’s no debate, CNN. Everyone saw the bodycam footage. Renee Good clearly struck the ICE agent with her moving vehicle. The officer was justified to take action.” This is simply not true. Video evidence “shows no indication that the agent who fired the shots, Jonathan Ross, had been run over,” The New York Times reported. “It also establishes how Mr. Ross put himself in a dangerous position near her vehicle in the first place.” When Tapper told Mullin that Ross’ shot hit the side of Good’s vehicle – meaning he was not in front of it – “Mullin dismissed the footage,” The Daily Beast continued.
Following the brutal killing of Pretti later that month, an unhinged Mullin disparaged the VA ICU nurse as a “deranged individual,” falsely claiming that he came in to “cause max damage, with a loaded pistol, with an extra mag that was completely loaded,” according to The Bulwark. But once again, the video footage doesn’t lie. “The ICU nurse fatally shot by federal officers in Minneapolis was not armed at the time of his killing, despite the claim from officials, according to witness footage,” People reported. “Pretti is seen standing among a group of protesters with both hands visible, while holding his phone in one hand as an agent squirts pepper spray at the group.” In fact, Pretti had come to the aid of a woman 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 so far as to argue that American-born children should be deported alongside their undocumented parents. During a June 2025 interview with “Meet the Press,” Mullin was questioned about “what should happen to babies born in the United States whose parents are deported, given that the children are U.S. citizens under current law,” Reuters reported. “Well, they should go where their parents are,” he responded. “Why wouldn’t you send a child with their parents? I mean, why would you want to separate them?”
Mullin was also “unmoved” by the administration’s cruel targeting of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, The Bulwark reported. “After pictures emerged of a bunny hat–wearing Ramos being detained outside his school, the senator said the press was deliberately misleading their readers and viewers about the circumstances of the case.” During an appearance on Newsmax, a chyron during Mullin’s segment read, “Fake media finds perfect fake sob story.”
“This story that they’re blowing up about this 5-year-old kid is so false, is so untrue that honestly, there probably should be some lawsuits filed against this,” Mullin claimed. “Because I spoke to Secretary Noem yesterday and today about the case. They’re not even reporting the facts.”
Markwayne Mullin on the attempted deportation of Liam Ramos, a 5-year-old child of an undocumented immigrant in Minneapolis:"This story that they’re blowing up about this 5-year-old kid is so false, is so untrue that honestly, there probably should be some lawsuits filed against this."
MULLIN DEFENDED AGGRESSIVE ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS AND CLAIMED CITIZEN PROTESTORS WERE PAID AGITATORS
Mullin has defended the administration’s violent military invasion of American communities, stating that out-of-control federal immigration agents have “the right” to flood neighborhoods and claiming that Americans who have been exercising their right to protest and observe these operations are being paid.
“If [Justice Department officials are] investigating [violence against Americans], they need to be investigating the paid protesters, and who’s paying them to obstruct federal officers from doing their job,” Mullin claimed in January. He then went on to suggest that Americans who have been exercising their right to observe federal immigration actions are breaking the law. “What needs to be looked at is, why are these individuals thinking it’s OK to interfere with a federal officer?” he continued. “That is a federal offense by itself. And yet, they’re getting in the way of these individuals executing the job.”
The U.S. Constitution is clear: “The First Amendment protects your right to take photos and videos of law enforcement officers performing their duties in public,” the ACLU said. “This applies to ICE agents, police, FBI, National Guard troops, and any other government officials.” The ACLU notes that some officers retaliate “by making threats, spraying chemical irritants, and arresting people recording them.” We have seen this play out in Minnesota in recent weeks, where observers have been arrested by masked agents for trying to exercise their rights.
Mullin has also “attacked district court judges for issuing rulings that had forced ICE to slow, stop, or even reverse some of its most aggressive tactics,” The Bulwark continued. “Asked by Fox News host Will Cain about the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, which proceeded despite a judicial order prohibiting the administration from sending him to that country, Mullin went after the judge for overstepping what the senator considers his proper zone of authority.”
And, just weeks after Trump’s inauguration, Mullin, a member of the Cherokee nation, mocked worries that Native Americans were being targeted by ICE. “For Indigenous Americans it’s unthinkable, but true,” Idaho Capital Sun reported last month. “ICE is arresting, detaining Native Americans.” Among Native Americans targeted in these “Kavanaugh stops” include “Northern Exposure” actress Elaine Miles.
MULLIN HAD PRO-IMMIGRANT VIEWS – BEFORE HE DIDN’T
Just like Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Rollins previously made statements that appear to run counter to Trump and Miller’s mass deportation agenda, such as endorsing a proposal that agreed to increased border security, including a wall, in exchange for some relief for Dreamers. “After a conference call with POTUS. I believe his offer is a win-win for both sides: #nationalsecurity and #DACA,” then-Rep. Mullin said in January 2019. “The Democrats’ number one issue for years has been fixing #DACA. Now, they have an opportunity to fix it. Let’s see what they do with it. Or, we’ll see if it’s really just all politics to them.” But this and other proposals weren’t torpedoed by Democrats, but rather by Stephen Miller. Later that same year, Mullin touted the economic benefits of immigration while promoting an upcoming podcast, stating that while the U.S. had a “great economy now,” the nation was facing “a shortage of workers that are needed to fill available openings.” But in an about-face following his election to the U.S. Senate, Mullin decried relief 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 also touched on white nationalist talking points by claiming that Harris was “more interested in giving citizenship to illegals than the safety and sovereignty of America’s borders.”
In the Senate, Mullin has continued to cement his hardline credentials by further targeting U.S.-born children – and indeed the very meaning of being an American – by cosponsoring the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2021, which sought to restrict the 160-year-old constitutional principle that everyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen. That same year, Mullin cosponsored the Remain in Mexico Act, which sought to codify policy under the first Trump administration that experts said violated non-refoulement obligations under the Refugee Convention by returning asylum-seekers to potential persecution and torture.
In 2023, Mullin cosponsored two bills seeking to further restrict due process rights and diminish our country’s ability to offer refuge to the oppressed. The “deceptively titled” Keep Our Communities Safe Act would have granted “unlimited power” to DHS “to detain noncitizens for an indefinite period of time, with no opportunity for a bond hearing,” Physicians for Human Rights said. The Asylum Abuse Reduction Act “would have prohibited migrants from applying for asylum at the border, requiring prospective applicants to instead travel to a U.S. embassy or consulate for an interview with an asylum officer,” according to the Texas A&M University School of Law. This and a 2021 version of the bill were favorably received by Tanton network anti-immigrant groups CIS, FAIR, and NumbersUSA.
MULLIN ENDORSED THE BIG LIE THAT FALSELY CLAIMS TRUMP WON THE 2020 ELECTION
Mullin was a proponent of the Big Lie falsely claiming that Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election. “Shortly after the election, Mullin joined a case before the Supreme Court calling for all the votes for president in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — states that were narrowly won by Democrats — to be discarded, in order to change the outcome of the election,” GovTrack said. In a telephone town hall just hours before the January 6 insurrection, Mullin continued to promote the Big Lie by stating that he believed the results were “absolutely” not honest. “Mullin acknowledged that officials including former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, a Trump appointee, have said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud,” Public Radio Tulsa reported January 5.
“On January 6, 2021 in the hours after the violent insurrection at the Capitol, Mullin voted to omit Arizona and/or Pennsylvania from the counting of presidential electors, which could have altered the outcome 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 building in their effort to block decertification of the election results, Mullin deflected outcry against the president despite claiming that individuals who attack law enforcement “need to pay for that, without question.”
Just as recently as two weeks ago, Mullin provided nonsensical reasoning to defend the president’s “big Iranian lie,” The Daily Beast reported, continuing to confirm Mullin will defend all administration actions no matter how outrageous or false.
