Mullin earns the ire of MAGA base

When Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin spoke at the National Governors Association’s summer meeting on Aug. 1, he likely didn’t expect his comments about his agency’s immigration policy to provoke frustration among supporters of President Donald Trump.

But the backlash came swiftly. Critics called Mullin’s remarks out of touch with his mission and the promises his boss made on the campaign trail two years ago. Some conservative voices, such as the right-leaning social media influencer Nick Sortor and former Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino, accused Mullin of going soft on his mission to deport all illegal immigrants.

Other rumblings have emerged in recent days. Axios reported that White House border czar Tom Homan and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon were critical of Secretary Mullin and President Trump’s pick to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Lance Schroyer, an Oklahoma state trooper with little immigration enforcement experience. The Wall Street Journal also reported that Trump had accumulated his own frustrations with Mullin, a former U.S. senator from Oklahoma whom the president nominated as Homeland Security chief in March.

But among Trump supporters, the frustration for Mullin may be only partially a response to Mullin himself. Experts explain that the base is more frustrated with what it sees as the administration’s failure to make good on the president’s promise to conduct mass deportations. They say the failure to release accurate, unpolished statistics about the numbers of people it has deported have inspired skepticism among many who backed Trump in 2024, and Mullin just happens to be the man in the firing line.

At the Aug. 1 governors’ meeting, Mullin said that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security naturalized roughly 900,000 new U.S. citizens over the past year, and he made a case for expanding some agricultural visas to be year-round. He also implied that foreign nationals who had overstayed their visas but attended their immigration court dates and hadn’t committed any crimes might be allowed to stay in the United States.

“I think former Sen. Mullin—Secretary Mullin—means well, but I don’t think he’s the right person at this time for the job because of the fact that we need mass deportations,” said Jeff Clark, vice president of litigation at the Oversight Project. Clark is among a growing chorus of right-leaning voices and immigration hawks that have expressed disapproval with Mullin. “He’s trying to kind of signal that he wants to deport some people but by the same token he’s also trying to signal, ‘I want to try to keep these business interests happy,’ and so he’s trying to steer a centrist course.”

The desire for a clear enforcement of immigration laws without pandering to businesses that profit from cheap illegal labor is the raw nerve that’s come to the surface following Mullin’s remarks at the National Governors Association meeting.

“There are hundreds of articles … about how immigration enforcement has been ramped up under Trump, and that it’s so harsh, and that they’re doing things that nobody ever did before,” said Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and senior legal fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. “That is one side of the media, and unfortunately, we all too often live in bunkered media silos. The other side of the issue is that ICE isn’t removing enough people.”

Until last month, DHS had not released immigration arrest or deportation numbers since November 2024. Late last month, DHS’ top statistician resigned in frustration over that fact. But ICE did publish new statistics about the number of people ICE had been arresting in recent months roughly two weeks ago.

The frustration with Mullin’s remarks to the gathered governors has a lot to do with the feeling that mass deportations haven’t been delivered as promised, Arthur said. He argued that Mullin’s newness to the world of immigration enforcement is more to blame than anything else.

“Secretary Mullin came to the job without any immigration experience at all. He wasn’t on any committees of jurisdiction. It was never his thing. He’s from Oklahoma. Not really a hot, illegal immigration state,” Arthur said. “And so there are a lot of tripwires that the secretary probably doesn’t know are even there that, when he gives public statements, he is setting off and in some way instigating those people who are demanding more enforcement.”

Jennica Pounds, a visiting fellow at the Oversight Project and an independent analyst who runs the DataRepublican website, conceded Mullin’s remarks at the National Governors Association meeting were out of touch.

“People voted in November for mass deportations, and a DHS secretary publicly making the growth case for foreign labor is going to read as backing off the mandate,” Pounds said.

But she noted that Mullin quickly backtracked, posting to social media, “NO amnesty for illegal aliens. Ever.” That may have blunted some of the backlash.

“The only way you hold a DHS secretary to that line is with the removal numbers, not a social media post,” Pounds said. “Publish it. Current count, monthly trend. … The data settles the debate, and right now nobody outside DHS can see it.”

Mullin’s apparent centrist course appears to be helping in the polls. An AP-NORC poll reported last week that Americans generally expressed less disapproval of Trump’s immigration policies than they did in February, when former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was still running the department. Both polls followed highly publicized shootings involving DHS immigration enforcement agents.

Many immigration advocates have echoed a similar sentiment about Mullin’s mainstream popularity compared with former Secretary Noem.

“I think that a lot more Americans are feeling more comfortable,” said Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum. She added that most Americans want to see the sort of things Mullin advocated for at the National Governors Association summer meeting.

“Eighty percent of Republicans earlier this year said that they want immigration solutions that are balanced across border security, enforcement that has a priority set on the most violent folks, asylum edits, and then a beneficial legal immigration pathway that helps our economy thrive,” Murray said. “I don’t think there’s any kind of poll you could find that would say that most Americans support mass deportation. I think that’s actually the weakest part of the current agenda [in terms of] American support.”

Even as public opinion has moderated in response to his presence in office, Mullin has also reportedly increased the number of immigration arrests. DHS, under Mullin, set back-to-back arrest records in June and July. In June, the department arrested roughly 43,000 people, according to documents posted on ICE’s website. In July, DHS arrested roughly 51,000 people, a senior DHS official told WORLD.

But Clark explained that he—and others—are skeptical of those numbers. The Oversight Project filed two Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, lawsuits against DHS, asking the agency for more information. One case demands answers about specific claims made in specific government news releases. The other demands data from DHS—internal reports and documents—that would give a clearer picture of how many individuals the administration has deported.

Clark argued that the mainstream media, left-wing advocacy groups, and interested law firms have pushed claims that the Trump administration has been unreasonably harsh in cracking down on illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, politicians in office have gained political clout by overstating how much immigration enforcement they’ve engaged in. Clark said the only way to cut through all the noise is to get hard facts from DHS.

In response to a request for comment about the criticisms of Mullin’s remarks at the governors’ summit, DHS said Mullin knew what his job was.

“Secretary Mullin has been clear: if you come to the United States illegally, you will be detained and deported,” the department told WORLD in a statement. “We are all focused on delivering on the President’s mission to deport illegal aliens and protect the homeland. Anyone who says otherwise is just trying to sow division and create an illusion of chaos.”

DHS also pointed to deportation and arrest figures the administration has previously published: “In President Trump’s first year back in office, more than 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration including an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations. As of August 4, we have now deported over 1 million illegal aliens and arrested over 1 million illegal aliens,” DHS said.

Jennie Murray from the National Immigration Forum explained that she and her organization don’t doubt the deportation numbers coming out of DHS.

“ICE compiles internal data on arrests and detention, which appear to be accurate from the reports we are seeing,” she said, noting that 51,000 arrests in July work out to an average of 1,645 per day. “This would be the highest number in a single month in DHS history.”

Clark explained that he couldn’t be sure whether Mullin might soon be headed for the door or whether Trump might keep him.

“[President Trump is] not blown by the winds of what the mainstream media says, and he’s also not blown by the wind of social media discontent directed at anybody,” Clark said. “If he’s happy with Secretary Mullin, he thinks that it’s balancing a lot of different variables in the right way or at least a defensible way, then I don’t really know now what the prospects are for Secretary Mullin staying in office or not.”