Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin is claiming the Iranian government tried to sneak people with “direct ties” to its Islamic Revolutionary Guard into the U.S. along with its World Cup soccer team.

Asked if Iranian refugees were seeking entry into the U.S. at the direction of the IRGC on this weekend’s edition of “Sunday Morning Futures,” he said that wasn’t the only example of the republic’s attempts at deception.

Markwayne Mullin alleges that Iran tried to smuggle IRGC associates into the US with their World Cup team pic.twitter.com/QXMaxmrtLT— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 21, 2026

“We’re also seeing this with the games they’re playing with FIFA,” Mullin claimed, telling Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that the U.S. denied over half of the Iranian team’s 100-plus person World Cup envoy entry to the U.S. from their training base in Tiajuana, Mexico.

“So these games that Iran plays makes them an adversary that you can’t trust,” he said.

Saying that “no one knows that better” than President Donald Trump, Mullin told Bartiromo: “Everything that we do will be verified and not assumed.”

Markwayne Mullin claims somebody who tried to travel into the US with the Iranian soccer team "had direct ties to the IRGC" pic.twitter.com/ZV1stwL9Qd— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 21, 2026

The secretary assured people that Iran’s players were fully vetted, though he did reveal that the president of Iran’s soccer federation had been denied entry into the U.S.

Mullin’s accusations of unsportsmanlike conduct come days after news the U.S. and Iran had finally agreed to a framework of terms to end to the military conflict which kicked off nearly four months ago.

Despite peace talks playing out in Switzerland right now, the secretary told Bartiromo he believed the Iran’s government was still intent on finding a way to harm people on U.S. soil.

“This regime that we’re dealing with, they have been chanting ‘Death to America’ for 49 years,” he said, crediting Trump for not allowing Iran’s “fantasy” of activating terrorist “sleeper cells” become a reality.

Source: HuffPost