There are bad ideas, and then there are ideas so catastrophically self-destructive that you wonder whether anyone involved has spoken to an airline executive, an air traffic controller, or literally anyone who understands how airports work.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s threat to halt international flight processing in so-called “sanctuary cities” falls squarely into that second category.

This isn’t immigration policy. It’s the federal government threatening to weaponize aviation infrastructure against political opponents.

Speaking on Fox News, Mullin suggested the administration is “drawing up plans” to stop processing international flights in cities where local officials oppose the administration’s immigration agenda or where protests have taken place outside detention facilities. The justification appears to be that if cities don’t cooperate with ICE operations, they shouldn’t benefit from federal customs processing either.

That’s not how any of this works.

Even Transportation Secretary Mark Duffy seemed to acknowledge the obvious reality when he told the Associated Press, “We have people from around the world and around the country that need to be able to fly into all different kinds of places. We shouldn’t shut down air travel in a state that doesn’t agree with our politics.”

Customs and Border Protection processes lawful international arrivals: tourists, business travelers, permanent residents, students, foreign workers, and Americans returning home. Shutting down international processing at major airports would not meaningfully affect undocumented immigration. What it would do is create immediate chaos throughout the aviation system while inflicting enormous economic damage on cities and airlines alike.

And the administration’s own sanctuary state, county, and city list makes the proposal even more absurd.

Chicago. Los Angeles. New York. Seattle. Denver. San Francisco.

These aren’t fringe cities. They are critical pieces of American aviation infrastructure.

O’Hare alone reclaimed its title as the busiest airport in the world last year with more than 860,000 aircraft operations. One takeoff or landing every 37 seconds, around the clock. Nearly 85 million passengers traveled through the airport in 2025.

You do not simply “move” that traffic elsewhere because the administration is angry at local Democrats.

Where exactly are these flights supposed to go?

Airports are not interchangeable. Capacity is finite. Gate space is finite. Customs staffing is finite. Air traffic congestion is already a nationwide problem without the federal government deliberately sabotaging major international hubs for political reasons.

Of the ten busiest airports in the world by operations, seven are located in the United States. And of those seven, only three are outside sanctuary jurisdictions targeted by this administration. The administration is effectively threatening the infrastructure that keeps American air travel functioning.

Airports are not interchangeable Lego pieces that can be rearranged according to whatever Fox News segment angered the administration that morning. Many flights would simply be canceled. Connections would disappear. Cargo would be delayed. Travelers would be stranded. Regional economies would take hits measured in billions.

The airline industry itself appears alarmed by the proposal. Airlines for America warned that “reducing [Customs and Border Protection] staffing at major airports would have a devastating effect on the airline and tourism industries, causing a significant operational disruption to carriers, travelers and the flow of international cargo.”

And for what?

The broader travel industry is warning about the same thing. The U.S. Travel Association, whose members include major airlines and hotel chains, warned that “such a move would have devastating consequences for the travel industry and communities that depend on international visitation.”

This administration is already damaging American tourism through trade wars, tariffs, and growing international instability. Canadian tourism has already suffered amid escalating tensions. The United States is preparing to host the World Cup and the Olympics, and the administration’s answer to mounting international concern about American stability is to threaten the operations of major international airports.

Instead, the administration keeps signaling that basic systems of governance are now subject to partisan loyalty tests.

At a certain point, this stops being policy disagreement and starts looking like an administration testing how much collateral damage it can inflict on disfavored cities.

And beneath all of this is the increasingly obvious reality that many of the administration’s loudest immigration proposals are not designed to solve immigration problems. They’re designed to generate headlines and outrage cycles on cable news.

Because if the goal were serious immigration reform, officials would be talking about visa systems, asylum court backlogs, staffing shortages, and congressional legislation. Instead, we get performative threats that collapse the second someone asks how airports actually operate.

This administration keeps mistaking cruelty for competence.

The administration keeps confusing spectacle with strength, cruelty with competence, and partisan punishment with governance. Threatening to cripple international air travel because cities refuse to politically submit is not serious policymaking. It is authoritarian theater performed by people who seem to believe infrastructure exists to serve the ruling party.