Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said left-wing advocates calling for the abolition of the Department of Homeland Security are pursuing a strategy of deliberately created chaos meant to pave the way for socialism, according to remarks he made at Breitbart News’s Border Security, Public Safety, and American Sovereignty Event in Washington, DC.
“My theory behind that is the only way you can take a republic, a true democracy, a true republic like the United States — or any country — and turn it into a socialist, communist country, is you got to fabricate chaos,” Mullin said.
We have the job of protecting the homeland. It should never be controversial. Why is the Department of Homeland Security controversial? Why is it controversial to protect our backyards?
Mullin went on to describe what he characterized as a broader pattern among those pushing socialism or communism. “If there’s not chaos, you got to create the chaos. And once it gets so chaotic and people are looking for someone [to end the chaos], then you can usher in socialism and communism,” he said. “You see that every single time when you have a democracy that fails, they push socialism and communism.”
He added that such systems eventually collapse and voters attempt to return to democratic governance, saying there is “usually about a 20- to 25-year gap between them.”
Mullin also argued that demographic change is central to this political shift. “If you were to AI the question to [ask] ‘How do you turn a red state blue, or how do you turn a country from democracy to socialism?’, it’ll tell you 100 percent of the time you got to change demographics,” he said. He tied this claim to calls to “defund police,” which he said have evolved into calls to abolish his own department.
“Who would ever think ‘Defund Police!’ would become [the cause of] abolishing Department of Homeland Security when our job is to protect the homeland?” he said.
Mullin said the Trump administration is not opposed to immigration carried out through legal channels. “We’re not anti-immigration … If you want to embrace what America is all about, we want you — but you’re going to follow our nation’s laws,” he said.
Democrats Push Back on Immigration Enforcement
Mullin’s comments come as some Democrats have called for sharply curtailing federal immigration enforcement. At a press conference in late September, Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) said, “We are going to … completely defund and strip authority from ICE and CBP [which] keep lists of you.” Ramirez delivered part of her remarks in Spanish and was joined by a coalition that included illegal migrants, Islamic advocates, an Asian American advocate, and a lesbian Chicago politician, among other Democratic allies.
Former President Barack Obama has separately said he supports using legal immigration to build what he has described as a multicultural society.
