A Trump administration official's proposal to punish Democratic-led cities was met with harsh criticism.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin appeared on Fox News late Tuesday to discuss plans to stop processing international travelers and cargo at U.S. airports in cities that refused to cooperate with the administration's immigration crackdown.
"We are currently drawing up plans to say, listen, in these sanctuary cities where the local radical left Democrats aren't allowing us to do our job and enforce federal laws," Mullin told host Sean Hannity, "then we shouldn't be processing international flights into their cities."
Critics pounced on the proposal as impractical and likely unconstitutional.
"Of all the bad ideas floated by this Administration, this one ranks," said CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem. "It has got to be real; Mullin wouldn't waste time like this unless it is a serious distraction plan. Planes don't divert to other airports. The flights will be cancelled, disrupting blue and red voters, impacting the airlines, and having no impact on immigration policy. They are going to do it."
"This plan is actively *insane,*" warned Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, of the American Immigration Council. "Airlines cannot divert large numbers of international flights from one city to another; they'd just have to cancel flights en masse, causing enormous economic damage that splashed waaaaay beyond a few big cities that were the target."
"'Attention, passengers. We've been advised our landing has been rerouted from Chicago to Fort Wayne, Indiana,'" predicted journalist Nancy Nall Derringer.
"'No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another'" U.S. Const. Art 1, s. 9, cl. 6," quoted the widely followed Questionable Authority account.
"When radical, extremist, conservative, right wing, Neo-Confederate, Republican fascist / gangster voters and their fascist / gangster party make war on US cities," grumbled economist Hansel Krankepantzen.
"Kinda curious what the actual plan, if any, is," wondered Lawfare's Eric Columbus. "Even this crew isn’t that stupid."
"This may actually be the stupidest proposal that I have heard from a Trump cabinet secretary in 5+ years of Trump cabinet secretaries and the combined suit from blue states and airlines will be good reading," marveled podcaster Matt Cameron.