(The Center Square) – The U.S. Coast Guard is surging maritime resources nationwide in response to President Donald’s Trump’s declaration of an invasion and a national emergency related to the country’s borders.
“The U.S. Coast Guard is the world’s premiere maritime law enforcement agency, vital to protecting America’s maritime borders, territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Coast Guard acting commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday said in a statement. “Per the President’s Executive Orders, I have directed my operational commanders to immediately surge assets – cutters, aircraft, boats and deployable specialized forces – to increase Coast Guard presence and focus starting with the following key areas.”
The Coast Guard is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Under the Biden administration, Coast Guard crews responded to a record number of illegal entry attempts at sea by Cubans, Haitians and people from all over the world, The Center Square reported.
Coast Guard presence is being increased at the southeast U.S. border approaching Florida “to deter and prevent a maritime mass migration from Haiti and/or Cuba,” as well as in the maritime border between the Bahamas and Florida, Lunday said.
Coast Guard crews are also surging resources in the maritime border around Alaska, Hawai’i, the U.S. territories of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands, he said.
In the southwest maritime border, Coast Guard crews are surging resources between the U.S. and Mexico in the Pacific Ocean as well as in the Gulf of America, he said. Like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the U.S. Coast Guard is referring to the U.S. Continental Shelf bounded by five gulf states, including Florida, as the Gulf of America in official documents.
Coast Guard crews are also continuing to provide support to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine units on maritime portions along the southwest U.S. border.
In coordination with DHS and the Department of Defense, “we will detect, deter and interdict illegal migration, drug smuggling and other terrorist or hostile activity before it reaches our border,” Lunday said.
Despite claims made last year that Coast Guard crews weren’t interdicting and repatriating foreign nationals attempting to illegally enter the U.S. off the coast of Florida, crews regularly were and have been for years, The Center Square reported. They interdicted thousands of illegal foreign nationals, in record numbers, every year under the Biden administration in the Florida Straits, in surrounding waters and in the waters of U.S. territories.
Coast Guard crews working with DHS Task Force-Southeast partners maintain a continual presence with air, land and sea assets in the Florida Straits, the Windward Passage, the Mona Passage, and the Caribbean Sea, the Coast Guard says. Their efforts focus on protecting “the safety of life at sea while preventing unlawful maritime entry to the United States and its territories.”
In the last two weeks alone, prior to Trump’s executive order, crews repatriated roughly 200 to the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and Cuba. Those apprehended were primarily Dominican, Haitian and Cuban nationals.
Those apprehended at sea are processed to determine their identity and provided food, water, shelter, and basic medical attention before they are repatriated to their country of origin or returned to the country from which they departed.
