Trump-backed US senator and ex-MMA fighter a vocal supporter of ICE’s ‘red-blooded American patriots’
Donald Trump is nominating Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin to lead the Department of Homeland Security, handing control of the administration’s sweeping immigration and deportation agenda to one of Washington’s most hardline voices and combative allies on the issue.
The announcement came Thursday as Trump ousted Kristi Noem following a catastrophic week on Capitol Hill, in which Republican lawmakers grilled her over a $220m advertising contract that prominently featured her own image. The White House had publicly denied Trump ever approved the campaign.
The first-term Mullin, 48, spent a decade in the House before winning a special election for his Oklahoma Senate seat in 2022, with Donald Trump’s endorsement. A member of the Cherokee nation, he studied construction technology rather than completing a four-year degree, and is widely reported to be the only sitting senator without a bachelor’s degree.
His record on immigration enforcement has aligned closely with Trump’s hardline stance. He co-sponsored the Laken Riley Act, which mandates ICE detention for undocumented immigrants charged with theft or burglary until deportation proceedings are complete. He has long defended ICE, criticized sanctuary city policies as an obstruction of federal law, and consistently frames mass deportation as a legal obligation.
