{"id":257816,"date":"2026-04-08T16:42:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T16:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/257816\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T16:42:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T16:42:44","slug":"trump-administration-proposes-barring-international-flights-to-sanctuary-cities-like-sf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/257816\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration proposes barring international flights to sanctuary cities like SF"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON<\/a>) \u2014 Imagine if international flights were no longer able to land at San Francisco International Airport, or other areas that were sanctuary cities, because the federal government pulled customs officers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an idea floated by the Trump administration\u2019s new head of the Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of these cities have international airports. If they\u2019re sanctuary cities, should they really be processing customs into their city?\u201d said new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. \u201cIf they\u2019re a sanctuary city and they\u2019re receiving international flights and we\u2019re asking them to partner with us at the airport, but once they walk out of the airport, they\u2019re not going to enforce immigration policy, maybe we need to have a really hard look at that because we need to focus on cities that want to work with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inaugural Southwest flight into Santa Rosa arrives at Sonoma County airport <\/a><\/p>\n

\"Homeland<\/p>\n

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon)<\/p>\n

Bay Area leaders were quick to clap back at this idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just deranged,\u201d said State Senator Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. \u201cIt\u2019s completely illegal. We would immediately challenge that in court. But would it create chaos if they decided to act on that? Yes, it would.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aviation experts say international carriers cannot be prevented from landing at SFO due to transnational agreements, but that\u2019s not the case for U.S. carriers.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, this is going to become difficult operationally for the airlines. It\u2019s going to become a difficulty for the passengers,\u201d said retired commercial airline captain Doug Rice.<\/p>\n

Rice says if this proposal becomes reality, U.S. carriers could be forced to stop at non-sanctuary city airports to clear customs before continuing to airports like SFO.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody who has a connecting flight that was expecting to come off a non-stop flight with, let\u2019s say, a two-hour connection in San Francisco is going to have difficulty if that airplane has to make an hour-and-a-half stop in Wyoming or North Dakota to clear customs, then proceed on to San Francisco,\u201d Rice said.<\/p>\n

That said, Rice is confident that pressure from the airline industry, pilot and flight attendant unions and passenger organizations will keep this proposal from taking flight.<\/p>\n

Officials at SFO declined to comment at this time.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) \u2014 Imagine if international flights were no longer able to land at San Francisco International…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[59722,113961,29702,95645,101,103,102,10483,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-257816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-international-airport","9":"tag-international-carriers","10":"tag-international-flights","11":"tag-markwayne-mullin","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","14":"tag-san-francisco-news","15":"tag-sanctuary-cities","16":"tag-sf","17":"tag-sf-headlines","18":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}