DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin visits Alaska, warns that drug cartels are testing new northern routes

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Aug. 12, 2026 – Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin arrived in Alaska on Monday for a firsthand review of the state’s increasingly important role in border security, drug interdiction, and America’s expanding presence in the Arctic.

But in an exclusive interview with The Alaska Story, Mullin began introducing himself with a story about the late Congressman Don Young. The story involved a hunting trip, an unfortunate encounter with a propane heater, and that time Alaska’s congressman made Mullin look like a liar.

“When I got to Congress, I was 35 years old,” Mullin said, starting his trip down memory lane. “Don Young had the only seat permanently assigned to him on the House floor.”

The seat was the first chair on the left after members stepped off the elevators and entered the chamber. New members were sometimes encouraged to sit there as a prank, Mullin recalled, knowing Young would quickly remove the unsuspecting freshman,  sometimes by the ear.

“I didn’t want that to happen to me,” Mullin said.

So he introduced himself to Young, who wanted to know who the young freshman congressman was, whether he had ever visited Alaska and whether he hunted.

“I said, ‘I’m from Oklahoma.’ He said, ‘I don’t think I can pull your ear,’” Mullin recalled.

Young soon invited Mullin on a caribou hunt, nearly guaranteeing that Mullin would return home with an animal. Thus, during Mullin’s first year in Congress, the he traveled to Kotzebue and then flew out to a remote hunting camp.

Young did not arrive until a couple of days later, but when he did, Mullin saw the legendary Alaska congressman in his element.

“One thing about Don is, he was one of the most likable and loyal guys out there,” Mullin said.

Young also claimed he could command the northern lights. “Every time he would yell at the northern lights, they’d move,” Mullin said. “I saw him do that for five nights in a row.”

The hunting trip took a rough turn on the final night. Someone had placed a propane heater near Young’s bed, which had a wooden frame. Young tripped, fell, and struck his nose against the frame.

“He was bleeding like a stuck pig,” Mullin said.

Mullin treated the injury and helped Young into his bedroll before heading out to hunt. When he returned, Young’s face was badly bruised and both eyes were turning black.

Young wondered what he could possibly tell people when they returned to Washington, DC.

“I said, ‘You were sighting in your gun and got scoped,’” Mullin recalled, referring to the facial injury that can occur when a rifle recoils and the scope strikes the shooter.

Young loved the explanation.

For the next several days in Washington, Mullin faithfully told people that Young had been struck by a rifle scope. Then he walked over to Young’s prized seat on the House floor and heard the congressman telling everyone around him what had really happened.

“He was telling everyone the truth, that he fell over his heater,” Mullin said. “He made me a liar.”

To add insult to injury, Mullin never got his caribou.

Young continued promising to take him back to Alaska for another attempt, but the two never made the trip before Young died in March 2022.

Mullin’s visit this week was his first to Alaska since becoming secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in March. His itinerary included stops in Anchorage and Kodiak, with attention focused on Customs and Border Protection operations, maritime security, Coast Guard assets and the Trump administration’s efforts to rebuild America’s icebreaking fleet.

During a tour of an Anchorage cargo inspection facility at the Don Young Port of Alaska, Mullin said federal officers discovered approximately eight gallons of a liquid substance suspected of being associated with date-rape drugs. The shipment had been labeled as massage oil or essential oil.

“They just happened to catch it,” Mullin said, praising the Customs and Border Protection personnel who intercepted the shipment.

Anchorage is a major gateway for cargo moving between Asia and the Lower 48, making its inspection facilities an important first line of defense against illicit drugs and other contraband entering the country.

“The work they do is remarkable,” Mullin said.

He said the Trump Administration’s increased pressure on the southern border is forcing drug cartels to search for alternative routes into the United States. Alaska and Canada are among the pathways they are now testing.

“What we are seeing with fentanyl is, we put pressure on the southern border, so the cartels are looking for other ways to bring it in,” Mullin said.

That means federal agencies must constantly adjust as trafficking organizations change their methods, conceal shipments in seemingly ordinary products and probe for weak spots along America’s northern approaches.

“They are shifting their focus into Alaska and into Canada, going south into the United States,” Mullin said. “So we are working hard at trying to prevent it and make adjustments.”

His trip also included Kodiak, where two new Arctic Security Cutters are scheduled to be homeported as part of the largest expansion of America’s icebreaking capacity in decades. A third is planned for Seward, while the Coast Guard Cutter Storis will eventually be homeported in Juneau.

Mullin credited Sen. Dan Sullivan with driving the effort to secure an unprecedented $25 billion investment in the Coast Guard, including billions for icebreakers, aircraft, cutters and shore-based infrastructure.

Mullin served alongside Sullivan on the Senate Armed Services Committee before President Donald Trump selected him to lead Homeland Security. The Coast Guard operates under Mullin’s department.

“Sen. Dan Sullivan has been the biggest proponent for assets for the Coast Guard, especially icebreakers,” Mullin said.

He said Sullivan was instrumental in securing the Coast Guard investment and repeatedly pressed the case that America’s Arctic ships should be based in Alaska, close to the waters where they will operate.

The Alaska congressional delegation secured $3.5 billion for three Arctic Security Cutters and $4.3 billion for two new Polar Security Cutters, with progress toward a third, through the 2025 Working Families Tax Cuts Act. The legislation also included more than $3 billion for shoreside infrastructure and funding for additional cutters, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.

Mullin made it clear that the Coast Guard buildup did not happen by accident.

“It got done because of Dan Sullivan pushing it,” he said.

Before becoming the ninth secretary of Homeland Security, Mullin represented Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District in the House from 2013 through 2022 and served in the Senate from 2023 until joining the Trump administration. He is a businessman, former professional mixed-martial-arts fighter and an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation.

Mullin was confirmed as Homeland Security secretary on March 24. He oversees a department of roughly 260,000 employees whose responsibilities include the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, immigration enforcement, cybersecurity, emergency management and transportation security.

His Alaska visit places him among several senior Trump Administration officials who have traveled north this year as the administration increases its focus on Alaska’s strategic position.

For Mullin, that mission now includes protecting the cargo gateways through which illegal drugs can reach the Lower 48, rebuilding a diminished icebreaker fleet and ensuring the United States can defend its interests in an Arctic increasingly contested by Russia and China.