DHS Sec. Mullin Gives a Status Report on How the US Plans to Keep '5-7M' World Cup Fans Safe

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Starting in just hours, the massive international sporting event known as the World Cup will kick off (no pun intended) for 2026, with 16 cities in the United States - along with Mexico and Canada - playing host to visitors from around the globe. 

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DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a recent interview on Fox News that while it's a "huge task," the U.S. is ready to keep "5-7 million" enthusiastic soccer fans safe during their stay:

Mullin said that it hasn't been without challenges, with so many locations and venues - and millions of people - involved:

Look, we have 78 Super Bowls, in 38 days, in 11 cities. Most of these cities are having a game...every other day...We're going to have five to seven million visitors.

Of course, the Democrats have been standing in the way of law enforcement doing its job over the past few months - a fact that wasn't lost on the DHS head.

"Unfortunately, the radical Democrats put this in jeopardy because they had us shut down as a whole for 76 days," Mullin said, but pointed out that it was 100 days for the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees.

He has to be sighing with relief about Congress finally getting that settled over the past 24 hours and as we wrote earlier on Wednesday, President Trump signing the DHS/CBP funding bill into law. My colleague Bob Hoge noted that it could have lead to disastrous results - all because the Dems wanted to play politics over immigration:

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 It was all over nonsensical demands for reforms to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), many of which would have severely curtailed agents’ ability to do their job.

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Then Sec. Mullin gave a full status report, saying that DHS and other government agencies are prepared for any "bad actors" who might want to pose a security threat to the events, athletes, or attendees:

We're going to show the best of America. We expect to have safe games, but we also know there's [sic] bad actors out there every day threatening us.

We have Customs and Border Protection over five stadiums, the FBI is over three stadiums...We have the Coast Guard that's taking two arenas.

It appears to be typical of the Trump administration's all-of-government approach, when a problem is a large one. As we saw just a few days ago, the U.S. was forced to pull the permission for a slew of Iranian coaches and other team officials with iffy connections to the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) or the regime, to enter the country for the World Cup events.

Things are not all doom and gloom, though, as my colleague Teri Christoph wrote, on the German tourist and soccer/football fan, Freddy, who's been sharing his lively commentary about the U.S. online.

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Sec. Mullin finished up his interview by reminding everyone that the World Cup begins Thursday with matches in Mexico, "running through July 19." And he threw in some humor, telling the Fox News hosts he won't plan on getting any proper sleep until later that night.

The World Cup professional soccer tourney runs through the middle of July.

The US Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles, one of the host cities for the 2026 matches, shared this timely warning Wednesday about restricted airspace during the World Cup events: