Exclusive: New DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Border Security & Mass Deportations

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Joining us now to discuss all sorts of other issues that are in the news and making his first appearance as a member of the president's cabinet on our show, it's a secretary of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullin, joining us live from his office in Washington D.C. Mr. Secretary, thanks for your time today.

[00:00:15]We appreciate you coming in to share a few minutes with us.

[00:00:19]Well, thanks for having me on, brother.

[00:00:20]Appreciate it.

[00:00:22]All right, I want to start here.

[00:00:24]Um, you have taken over just a few weeks ago and one of the things that you're dealing with on a daily basis are states that are being run by Democrats, cities being run by Democrats, where they will not honor ICE detainers of very, very violent illegal aliens. This goes on in Virginia a lot. There's this case in the news today about Walvin Victor Hugo Garcia, who in 2025 was charged with child rape, aggravated sexual battery of a victim under 13, distributing drugs to a minor. Virginia ignored the detainer and allowed him to walk and now ICE, which is under your jurisdiction, is calling out this move, which risks the lives of Virginia citizens. First of all, tell us about this case, but more broadly, how common is this? How often are we seeing blue states and blue cities let people go who absolutely should not be on the streets of America?

[00:01:16]We see it every day, multiple times a day from these from these blue states and all we ask them to is, "Listen, if you want to put put the person in prison, great.

[00:01:26]Obviously, he's a criminal, he's a felon, he's got to register now as a sex offender in this case. When you let him out, let us take him out of the country permanently. Just give us a detainer."

[00:01:35]We sent We send the information off, usually after they're convicted, and say, "When they're finished, let us take them." We've also been willing to pick them up and send them back even before their time is is completely served. We talked to a state yesterday that they spend $32,000 a day housing illegals that we could ship back tomorrow if they would allow us to simply come by and pick them up.

[00:02:01]But you're seeing and that's a small state by the way. You're seeing this all over the place and when they let these criminals out, they're in the country illegal. Now they're now they're they're they're either registered sex offenders or they're felons that they've got to register as a felon and they're on probation.

[00:02:17]Um and and they still let them on the streets illegally and then we have to go find them to pick them back up even if we can. What's frustrating about it is is the local law enforcement, they want to do their job. This is usually coming down directly from the governor or from some George Soros prosecuting attorney that has decided that that they're going to release the individual or even a a judge and Unfortunately, Jennings, there's nothing we can do. We have to sit here and just shake our head and on some of the worst of the worst, what we do is we let them get released.

[00:02:53]We follow them for a little bit and then we pick them right back up and put them in detention.

[00:02:59]Yeah, it's uh mind-boggling to me why this is happening. How much of your day by the way do you have to spend on the phone with governors and mayors like this who just simply can't be persuaded?

[00:03:08]I mean, I assume I assume you're calling them up and saying, you know, you absolutely don't want this particular person terrorizing your own citizens. I I assume they feel boxed in by their own radical political base to the point where they're willing to let illegal alien murderers and rapists out onto the street. Is that just the politics and how maddening is it for you as the secretary to deal with it?

[00:03:31]Well, the governors typically won't take my phone calls on these situations. I usually hear from it from the people police chief or the sheriff that gives me a heads-up and then I'll usually turn around and call Todd Lyons or the the regional director in the area as for what's happening with it. When I reach out for the governor or I reach out to the judge to say, "Hey, can you can you at least honor this that we they retainer we've got for the person.

[00:03:57]Um I nine times out of 10 the phone call goes unanswered.

[00:04:01]That's unbelievable to me. We can't even get people to work together with the federal government to protect citizens.

[00:04:07]>> secretary Yeah, with criminals. I mean this this These are not marginal cases.

[00:04:11]I mean we're talking about violent people and it's not really not really in dispute. I want to ask you about what's going on.

[00:04:16]>> These are individuals and and by the way, these aren't individuals that are that are being charged. These are individuals that's already been found guilty. They've already served their time. We're simply wanting to pick them up out of prison and to and send them back to the country they came from so we can get them off our streets.

[00:04:33]Mr. Secretary, I want to ask you about the overall state of the president's deportation agenda. Some people have argued maybe we're not deporting as many people as we were or we're not as focused on this as we were. I'm not sure that's the case. Set the record straight. How are the deportations going now that you're the secretary of Homeland Security?

[00:04:52]Well, thanks for bringing that up.

[00:04:54]People are so a lot of times in our base they if we're not on the news every day, if it's not bleeding, they don't see us fighting. The truth is we're out there fighting every single day. We haven't slowed down at all. I just I give you a report that I just got right before I came on your show. Yesterday between ICE and CBP we picked up and arrested over 20 300 people. We deported over 3,000.

[00:05:16]That's an average over the last 7 days we've deported over 3,000 a day. We're moving strong. We're just trying to do it in a different approach. I made it very clear when I when I was sworn into this position that I was my goal was to remove us DHS out of the news every single day.

[00:05:33]I bet you 98% of the population 14 months ago didn't even know ICE existed.

[00:05:38]But because all the controversial controversy that's been around it, it's been hindering them from able to do their job. So my job is to turn it down, let people know that regardless if you're in a blue state or you're in a red state, we're there to protect your streets, we're there to get criminals out of your communities, and and I'm going to do that because why? We're protecting the homeland, and that's a mission that all of us should be able to get behind and not make it political. I mean, you just saw Karen Bass, the mayor of of LA, who's begging us every single day for FEMA grants because of the 2028 Olympics, and yet she spends $250,000 going around putting up ICE is not wanted. I This is state property. You cannot be here signs, which means absolutely nothing. We can still be there because we are enforcing federal law. But, it's very frustrating to me, and but we haven't slowed down.

[00:06:28]We're working hard. Our officers are working hard. We're trying to bring back morale. In fact, we're trying to hire you, too, put you through the best training possible. You can come join our department. And And by the way, you can do something every single day you can be proud of because you know you're protecting the homeland.

[00:06:42]Full speed ahead on deportation, sounds like the headline here. Final question for you, Mr. Secretary. It's being reported that 1,300 employees left the TSA because of the Democrats' shutdown of DHS, which just ended a few days ago.

[00:06:56]Is that true? And if so, how long will it take you to replenish the TSA? Are we going to have to continue to see ICE or other agencies fill in the gaps while you train up new TSA agents?

[00:07:08]Well, we have FIFA that starts June 11th is our first game, and we have 78 games, which are basically 78 Super Bowls in 39 days in 11 different cities.

[00:07:21]ICEs are not ICE, but TSA is responsible for 11 of those games.

[00:07:26]Just to flex up and be able to be there, we're going to have to bring in CBP.

[00:07:30]We're going to have to bring in our other agencies that fall under DHS to be able to help with with be able to process. It takes 4 months to train a TSA agent, and the Democrats have played games four times with us and over a year have shut us down. These individuals they it's not like they're raking in a tremendous amount of money. A lot of them are putting some money back but not very much. They definitely can't go 76 days without payment and they have to go get another job and our firm rate typically is about little over 4%. That means that's what our turnover is typically. We were averaging way over 8%. In fact, it was 8.6% and and we've got to bring that number down but we've got to restore morale.

[00:08:11]Some of these individuals I think we can get to come back but but we still have it still takes us four months to put people on the line to teach them their job but they need to do and make sure that they keep our airports and by the way we do a lot more TSA does a lot more than just the gates that people see us at. We have a lot bigger mission and and and we want to make sure we don't fail at that.

[00:08:36]Mark Wayne Mullin, you are the new Secretary of Homeland Security. We're appreciative of your time today. We look forward to having you back soon.

[00:08:43]Thanks, brother. Appreciate you having me on.