Some things are just such head scratchers it's tough to wrap one's mind around it. That was my first reaction to hearing that DHS is floating eliminating customs at Newark Airport.

Say what you will about Newark (and we have, here and here and here), it's still one of the world’s busiest travel hubs and a central artery to global flight connections. So it truly took me a minute, despite having become quite accustomed to the chaos of Trump 2.0.

Here's the story. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Fox News on Tuesday that his office is "drawing up plans" to pull Customs and Border Protection agents from airports in sanctuary cities. The trigger seems to be protests outside Newark's Delaney Hall immigration detention center, where demonstrators have been blocking federal employees from entering and exiting.

His reasoning, per his Fox & Friends appearance: "We need to prioritize federal police officers, and that may impact international flights."

When Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade pressed him on the plan that would affect flights to sanctuary cities, such as Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, Mullin explained: “We’re not going to halt the flights. We’re just not going to be able to process them.” And if officers aren’t there to process international flights? “Well, then those individuals when the airlines land, well, they won’t be permitted into the United States.”

As of Friday, according to CNN, the White House had not signed off on the proposal. DHS, for its part, referred back to Mullin's own comments: "We shouldn't be processing international flights into their cities either, because they don't want us to enforce immigration, but they want us to process immigration at their facilities? Nothing about that makes sense to me."

According to Airlines for America, some 20,000 international passengers land at Newark on an average day — 14,000 of them U.S. citizens. Other Northeast airports don't have the slot capacity to absorb that overflow. The flights wouldn't redirect. They'd cancel.

"Reducing CBP staffing at major airports would have a devastating effect on the airline and tourism industries, causing a significant operational disruption to carriers, travelers and the flow of international cargo," Airlines for America warned.

The U.S. Travel Association went further, attaching a dollar figure. It sees a potential hit of $8 billion in annual international visitor spending at risk from Newark alone, and nearly 50,000 American jobs.

The timing is, to put it gently, notable. The World Cup final is July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey — about 12 miles from Newark airport. Skift's Meghna Maharishi has been tracking the industry's World Cup anxiety all spring: hotels have warned bookings are coming in softer than expected, and while airlines have seen a slight uptick in demand for host cities, high ticket prices and broader perceptions about the U.S. have been running into headwinds for months.

It's worth noting, if only for the dramatic poetry of it, that the man threatening to shut down customs at Newark two weeks before a UFC fight at the White House is himself a former professional MMA fighter. Undefeated, according to his DHS bio.