When Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin first suggested blocking international flights from cities that didn’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement during an April Fox News appearance, it “seemed more like a wild swing than a real plan,” said The Atlantic. Now, Mullin’s seemingly farfetched pitch to remove immigration agents from certain airports and reroute flights to Republican-led cities feels increasingly plausible. If the plan is enacted, experts warn the impact could be catastrophic.

‘Devastating effect’
Removing Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents from international airports would have a “devastating effect on the airline and tourism industries,” said trade association Airlines for America in a statement to CNN. It will cause “significant operational disruption to carriers, travelers and the flow of international cargo.”

The travel industry is “on edge,” said The Associated Press. Major airlines “quickly condemned the idea,” and “even Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said it doesn’t make sense.” The government “shouldn’t shut down air travel in a state that doesn’t agree with our politics,” said Duffy at a congressional hearing last month. 

The Justice Department last month published a list of states and cities it claimed were “impeding U.S. immigration policies,” said CNBC. These included “major international air hubs” like Boston, Los Angeles, Newark and San Francisco.

‘Thin grasp of global travel logistics’
Mullin is “pushing forward anyway” with his plan, said The Atlantic. He convened a “small group of airline- and travel-industry executives at DHS headquarters in Washington” and reportedly discussed reductions in CBP staffing at “major airports that serve sanctuary jurisdictions,” such as JFK in New York and Dulles in Washington, D.C. The secretary’s plans seem to “reflect a thin grasp of global-travel logistics” and show an “inflated sense of the government’s ability to impose economic pain on specific cities.”

It’s “not clear” how Mullin’s plan to block international travel to certain cities would “work in practice,” said Time. The proposal is “actively insane,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, on X. Airlines would be forced to “cancel flights en masse,” which would cause “enormous economic damage” that extends “waaaaay beyond a few big cities that were the target.”

Pratt is the latest entrant in the reality-TV-to-politics pipeline. He made his name as the villain on MTV’s “The Hills” during the late aughts and is now a contender to be the next mayor of Los Angeles.

Polls show him “within striking distance” of incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in tomorrow’s primary election, said CNN. Pratt, who waded into politics after losing his home in last year’s Palisades fire, betrays little such uncertainty about his chances. “I’m for sure going to be mayor,” he said to Vanity Fair. The message and the messenger both remind observers of President Donald Trump, who last week endorsed Pratt’s campaign.

‘Shining a light’ on city failures
The novice candidate has “captivated a frustrated Los Angeles,” said Susan Shelley at The Orange County Register. Rather than running a vacuous vanity campaign, Pratt has been “shining a light on the visible failures” of Los Angeles government. He could be a mayor who “solves problems instead of preserving them to justify more funding.”

The star is in a line of mostly Republican celebrities who have “leveraged their reality TV fame into political careers,” said Lorraine Ali at The Los Angeles Times. Pratt and Trump can “push conflict, drama and personality” so far in the social media era that “no one will ask what exactly it is that you do beyond posting.” The reality star is “betting that infamy can be political currency,” said Louis Staples at The Atlantic.

‘Almost certainly toast’
Pratt’s strong polling probably represents a “consolidation of the small but very real conservative minority” of Los Angeles voters who see him as a MAGA candidate, said Ed Kilgore at New York magazine. The city’s broader left-leaning electorate puts a “pretty firm ceiling on Pratt’s vote” that will make it difficult for him to win the mayor’s office in November. Instead, his candidacy may be the “best thing that could have happened to Karen Bass.” Pratt may well survive tomorrow’s nonpartisan primary election, but he’s “almost certainly toast” against a Democrat in a general election.

Hindus ascend the active Mount Bromo volcano in Indonesia to present offerings as part of the Yadnya Kasada festival. During the annual celebration, members of East Java’s indigenous Tengger community throw food, livestock and other gifts into the crater as tributes to the gods.
Juni Kriswanto / AFP / Getty Images

It’s not too early to start picking out your summer reading list, because a slew of new releases promise to keep this month interesting. Standouts for a perfect summer beach read include a highly anticipated debut of a speculative fiction rising star and several historical fiction options.

‘Sublimation’
Across Isabel J. Kim’s debut novel, immigration is explored through a science-fiction lens in a world where emigrating creates a second “instance” of the person who stays behind in their home country. Kim’s “pulls in historical, cultural and literary examples of ‘instancing’” before “recasting them all in the brilliant light of her imagination,” said The New York Times. (June 2, $29, Macmillan)

‘Land’
The bestselling author of “Hamnet” and “The Marriage Portrait,” Maggie O’Farrell returns with a novel about Ireland in the 1860s. In her latest work, the “facts ground the fiction, the fiction enlivens the facts,” and both “work together to suggest that the pursuit of resurrecting the past and the pursuit of telling a good story can, in some cases, be one and the same.” (June 2, $32, Penguin Random House, Amazon)

‘Daughters of the Sun and Moon’
Bestselling author Lisa See returns with a story that focuses on the real-life “Night of Horrors” massacre of 18 Chinese immigrant men and boys in post-Civil War Los Angeles in 1871. See offers a “stunning piece of historical fiction based in truth,” said Library Journal. And her book will “touch readers with the characters’ resilience, heroism and devoted friendship.” (June 9, $29, Simon & Schuster)