The new Secretary of Homeland Security, former Senator Markwayne Mullin, the top official responsible for enforcing the immigration agenda of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, continued this Wednesday his obligation to appear before Capitol Hill with a hearing in the House of Representatives. And in it, he spoke about Mexico.
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“I just returned from Mexico City where I spoke with President [Claudia] Sheinbaum and her cabinet about cooperation, and I will tell you that we have been impressed that they have been very cooperative, much more cooperative than the previous Administration,” Mullin said before the House Homeland Security Committee. “They still believe in their sovereignty and we must respect that,” he added.
On Tuesday, he did the same in the Senate. It was his first appearance on Capitol Hill since his appointment, replacing Kristi Noem, one of the first officials to leave Trump’s Cabinet after a year full of controversies. Criticism of Noem’s management in the Trump Administration’s deportation campaign peaked between January and February in Minneapolis, where two U.S. citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, were shot dead by agents.
Mullin avoided confirming on Tuesday that his department will comply with court orders seeking to halt the activities of the immigration agencies under his charge, arguing that many of them are politicized. The former Oklahoma senator was responding to questions from Senator Chris Murphy (Connecticut). Both had the most tense moments of their hearing before the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, held at Capitol Hill.
The White House is requesting a budget of $63 billion for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Border Protection Office (CBP). These figures correspond to 2027 and represent a decrease of $2.2 billion in its allocation compared to 2026.
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Another key point of Mullin’s Tuesday appearance came when he was asked in the upper chamber about Kilmar Abrego García, the migrant detained in Maryland and mistakenly deported to El Salvador last year, whose case became a symbol of the brutality of Trump’s immigration policy in the early stages of his second presidency.
Mullin, who admitted not knowing the case, hinted that he could send him to Costa Rica, the country the Salvadoran has chosen as his destination. Abrego García is fighting his deportation to a third country in courts, due to the impossibility of sending him back to El Salvador, where he would face persecution and reprisals by gangs. The Salvadoran has been in a standoff with the Trump Administration, which insisted on sending him to Liberia and refused to allow Costa Rica as the destination, the only country he has accepted and that has offered him asylum.
“If he is willing, we will be happy to send him,” Mullin said, in response to a question from Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, who has been persistently involved in Abrego García’s case. It is not clear if the new Secretary of Homeland Security’s words indicate a change of policy by his department, nor if that deportation will happen soon, but his lawyers used the video with Mullin’s statements to present it to Maryland Judge Paula Xinis, who is handling the case.
Mullin’s appearance comes as the Senate prepares to vote on an additional $70 billion budget for immigration agencies. Republicans scheduled the vote this Wednesday after several weeks of delay due to disagreements with Trump’s proposal to create a compensation fund to indemnify his allies. The proposal has been withdrawn and Republican senators will vote, possibly tonight, on the new funds for ICE without Democratic support.
