(NEWARK, N.J.) -- Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin amped up his threats Thursday to pull Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents who process international passengers at Newark Liberty International Airport to help control protesters outside of New Jersey's Delaney Hall detention center.

Mullin continued to slam the protests, now in their seventh day, outside the Immigration Customs and Enforcement detention center over reports of poor living conditions and poor health among its 300 detainees. DHS has denied the allegations.

ICE agents have clashed with protesters who attempted to block vehicles from entering, prompting the federal agents to use pepper spray and batons against them.

Mullin told "Fox & Friends" on Thursday that DHS needed to "prioritize federal police officers" in response to the protests and is considering pulling CBP agents from the airport to help agents outside the detention facility, which would delay processing international travelers and cargo.

"That may effect international flights coming in and out of their airport because I'm going to have to pull Customs and Border Protection officers out of being able to process international flights and put them helping our ICE agents," he said.

"By the way, if you can't process international flights because Customs is closed, you can't obviously process international flights coming in from out of country," he added.

Mullin said on Fox News that if "things don't change" he'll have to make the move "pretty quick."

"We are not going to halt the flights, we won't be able to process them because we won't have officers there," he said. "We will have to pull out our Customs and Border Patrol officers that process these flights and put them in these [detention] facilities to help protect our employees coming out to work."

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Newark Liberty International, did not immediately comment on Mullin's proposal.

Mullin has long been teasing a plan to pull CBP officers from airports that are in so-called "sanctuary jurisdictions." On Wednesday, he said he is "drawing up plans."