Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is considering pulling some customs staff from Newark’s airport to help federal officials respond to protests at a nearby immigration detention facility, two administration officials said — a move that the airline industry and some federal personnel warn would create havoc for international flights entering the country.
Mullin has not made a final decision, said the officials, who were granted anonymity to speak about internal discussions. One official said Mullin’s call will depend in part on whether protests escalate over the weekend, as well as whether border czar Tom Homan — who is expected to travel to New Jersey this weekend to meet with state and local officials — can defuse tensions on the ground. And President Donald Trump would have the final say if Mullin decided to make good on his threats.
The detention facility, Delaney Hall, has become the latest flashpoint in the Trump administration’s clash with Democratic lawmakers and protesters over the president’s immigration enforcement agenda. And it has emerged as the first test in how Mullin, who became DHS secretary following weeks of crisis in Minneapolis and its political fallout, will manage conflict between federal officers and demonstrators in cities across the country.
Democratic New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced plans Friday to create protected protest zones around the Delaney Hall facility to try to “lower the temperature” there — a decision Mullin praised as a “win for law and order.” But Sherrill also called the idea of pulling federal customs officials from Newark Liberty International Airport “completely ridiculous,” citing the FIFA World Cup, which will begin matches in the U.S. in two weeks.
DHS did not respond to a request for comment. A White House official granted anonymity to share internal thinking said the White House has “no new policy announcements at this time and ultimately any decisions will be up to POTUS.”
Mullin publicly teased the idea for Newark earlier this week.
“That may affect international flights coming in and out of their airport because I’m going to have to pull Customs and Border Protection officers out of being able to process international flights and put them helping our ICE agents,” he said in an interview with Fox News this week.
But the idea has faced internal resistance, the two administration officials said. It has raised fears that withdrawing the customs staff could spur chaos for U.S. travelers ahead of major events including the World Cup — while escalating an already intense situation on the ground in New Jersey. A lack of customs officers at an airport could result in a wave of flight cancellations. Airlines could also begin telling passengers to fly to other cities.
“It would be an absolute disaster to redirect all of those passengers and all of that cargo to another international airport,” said the first administration official.
‘Uncharted territory’
CBP officers assigned to process travelers at airports are distinct from personnel who conduct immigration enforcement operations. Temporarily reassigning those customs officers to new enforcement duties at an unfamiliar facility could place additional strain on staff normally responsible for clearing arriving passengers.
An airline official, granted anonymity to discuss the fluid situation, said the potential move is “uncharted territory” for the carrier’s operations.
“We’re still at the fact-finding portion of this, and so it’s hard to make those contingency plans when we don’t even know what to plan for,” the airline official said Friday. The official said their carrier is in daily communication with DHS and the Department of Transportation to convey the harm a customs withrawal would cause for travel at a time when the U.S. is preparing to welcome millions of international visitors. The U.S. Travel Association on Friday warned of “immediate and lasting harm” to both travelers and the economy, saying such a move would also damage “America’s reputation as a welcoming destination.”
The airline official underscored U.S. Travel’s position, and pointed to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s stance when he was asked recently about an article from The Atlantic that first reported on Mullin’s idea to limit flights to “sanctuary” jurisdictions.
“We have people from around the world and around the country that need to be able to fly into all different kinds of places,” Duffy said during a congressional hearing last week. “We shouldn’t shut down air travel in a state that doesn’t agree with our politics.”
The airline official said discussions with airline and travel advocacy groups in recent days had left the impression that the administration would hold off on any CBP movement or closure of services until after the World Cup. But that tone shifted this week, prompting growing concern from the industry.
In an interview with CBS News, Federal Aviation Administration chief Bryan Bedford said that rerouting international flights can’t just happen on a whim.
“There’ll be very limited opportunities to move international flights from one airport to another at this point,” Bedford said Friday.
Disrupting connections
Newark serves as a major passenger and cargo hub, and other airports in the Northeast are either at capacity or have takeoff and landing slots that are tightly managed by FAA — making it difficult to simply shift additional international flights elsewhere without triggering broader delays. Other airports also cannot provide passengers with the same access to connecting flights that Newark offers.
The trade group Airlines for America, which represents major domestic carriers, has been sharing statistics with the Trump administration, some of which state Newark accounts for almost $100 million a day in imports, with over 20,000 international passengers landing at the airport daily, of which approximately 14,000 are U.S. citizens.
Additionally, Bedford said the proposal would create significant logistical complications because a withdrawal of CBP staff would affect both U.S. and foreign citizens, who need to clear customs either way. “That’ll be a challenge for airlines in order to navigate where there will be Customs and Border check-in points and where they won’t be,” he said.
Seventeen groups representing travel, hotel and airline interests, including A4A, U.S. Travel and the Cargo Airline Association, on Friday separately urged DHS to avoid any moves that would have “operational and economic consequences.”
“International aviation networks are highly interconnected, and operational changes at a small number of gateway airports will quickly ripple across the country, negatively impacting travelers, cargo shipments, supply chains, and the communities that depend on those connections,” the groups said in a statement.
from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/p0z3LZC
via IFTTT
0 Commentaires