Newly confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is inheriting a department in distress.
The MAGA senator from Oklahoma, who is replacing “ICE Barbie” Kristi Noem, will contend with a staffing crisis as hundreds of staffers have quit amid the partial government shutdown, which has left the Department of Homeland Security without funding.
The new chief of the controversial agency, 48, is also set to be thrust into the political crossfire as Congress wrangles over Democrats’ demands for changes to ICE. Noem, 54, is due to leave her post on March 31.
More than 400 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers have quit their jobs since the partial government shutdown began on Feb. 14, acting DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told the Daily Beast. Moreover, roughly 10 percent of TSA workers have called out more than half the days of the week, NBC News has reported.
About 50,000 TSA employees have been working without pay during the shutdown. Some have fallen behind on bills, while others have even faced eviction.
The staffing shortage has led to extreme delays for passengers at some airports. On Monday, President Donald Trump deployed hundreds of ICE agents to help TSA officers, but many appeared to be standing idle rather than speeding up screening.
ICE, a part of DHS, has not been impacted by the shutdown because the agency was granted $75 billion in additional funds under Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” boosting the agency’s budget to levels greater than the annual military spending of most European armies.
Democrats slammed the president’s move as a pressure tactic in negotiations over DHS funding, which Trump upended over the weekend by rejecting an offer to fund every agency in DHS besides ICE.
Instead, he has made the path to fund the department even more implausible moving forward by demanding DHS funding be coupled with the passage of his “SAVE America Act” voter ID bill—a demand even Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican, called “unrealistic” on Monday.
Democratic lawmakers have refused to fund the DHS unless Republicans agree on a set of reforms to ICE, including a ban on masks for ICE agents, stricter warrant requirements for public arrests, and ending roaming patrols.
Mullin, a former MMA fighter, adopted a more conciliatory tone during his confirmation hearings, indicating he would support requiring warrants for agents entering private homes, a demand the White House has rejected.
He also said he regrets calling Alex Pretti a “deranged individual” in the wake of the ICU nurse’s killing at the hands of federal immigration officers during Trump’s crackdown in Minneapolis in January.
Still, fellow Republican senator Rand Paul accused Mullin of having anger management issues and being a liar, claiming his Oklahoma colleague applauded violence against him after he was attacked in 2017. Paul also played a series of clips where Mullin promoted fighting and even challenged a Senate witness to a brawl.
Newly resurfaced footage of Mullin boasting about threatening to drag a teenager’s face over asphalt has sparked further scrutiny over the senator’s temperament and his ties to a hardline evangelical Christian group.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Mullin’s office and the DHS for comment.
