International Flight Processing at Newark Airport Will Continue: Mullin

International flight processing at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport will continue, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Monday.

He said he sees no reason to pull federal agents from the airport, which could halt processing, to assist with security at a nearby Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center because of strong cooperation with state and local law enforcement in handling tensions between protesters and federal agents.

“As long as we continue to have this partnership with local and state law enforcement, then there’ll be no need to do so,” ​Mullin said Monday at a press conference in Dallas.

Confrontations outside the 1,000-bed illegal immigrant holding facility, called Delaney Hall and operated by the private company Geo Group, had carried on for about a week. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, ordered state police on May 29 to gain control of the situation and de-escalate the rising tensions.

Sherrill said outside agitators were fueling the violence against ICE officers.

At the Dallas press conference, Mullin reiterated that he had a plan in place to pull customs agents from the airport to help with security, but it was not needed because of the efforts by state and local law enforcement.

Due to the tensions around Newark Airport and the illegal alien holding center, the Homeland Security secretary warned last week that he was considering stopping the processing of international travelers and cargo at the airport.

Critics said this would cause chaos, strand thousands of tourists, and clog crucial imports.

Mullin also previously said he would halt immigration processing at more than a dozen other airports in cities that won’t allow local law enforcement to protect ICE officers, such as Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, ⁠and San Francisco.

If local law enforcement isn’t allowed to protect ICE agents, Mullin said, it could lead to those airports no longer being permitted to receive international flights. Without local agencies’ help, the secretary said he would have to reassign U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at airports to ICE facilities.

“If you can’t process international flights because customs is closed, you can’t obviously process international flights coming in from out of the country,” Mullin told Fox News last week.

He made these comments after local and state police were called to help protect the Newark ICE facility but didn’t respond.

“It wasn’t that law enforcement didn’t want to help,” Mullin said Monday. “They just were told not to help.”

If these conditions didn’t change, Mullin said, he would be forced to pull CBP agents from the airport to help with security at the detention center; thus, international flights would not be processed, and travelers would not be permitted into the country.

“We are not going to halt the flights. We are just not going to process them because we won’t have officers there,” Mullin said.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) released a statement about his visit to the Newark ICE center, claiming it had inadequate medical care, poor food, limited ability for detainees to communicate with family members, and poor living conditions.

“I believe that most Americans, if they saw who is being held and the conditions under which they’re detained, would agree that this facility is a moral stain on our nation,” Booker said.

The New Jersey senator has called for the ICE facility to be shut down and claimed he spoke with detainees who had no violent criminal history.

Mullin said the center is holding murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and “serious criminals.”

“This isn’t a Holiday Inn,” the secretary said. “We’re not providing luxury housing. We are providing a sanitary place for them to be detained.”

Also contrasting Booker’s statement, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) said he toured the center and described it as “clean, organized, and well-run.”

“Clean dorms. On-site doctors, nurses, and dentists. A law library. A regular library. A gym. A soccer field. Meals for allergies, kosher requirements, religious needs, and medical restrictions,” Van Drew wrote in a Monday post on X. “Let’s stop pretending this is about conditions.”

Mullin has called the protests at the Newark facility “political theater” and said he has “no respect for people who would rather defend criminals than actually pay attention to their safer streets.”

International travelers are expected to flood North America this month for the FIFA World Cup, hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The championship is set for July 19 in East Rutherford, New Jersey, which is about 12 miles from Newark Airport.