Earlier this week, the U.S. Coast Guard announced they would deploy personnel and equipment to waterway borders across the United States, including those in the newly renamed Gulf of America.
The announcement came one day after President Donald Trump was inaugurated and subsequently dismissed the former U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Lee Fagan. In her place, Adm. Kevin Lunday will serve as the Coast Guard’s Acting Commandant. According to Lunday, the military branch will step up efforts to identify and deter illegal entry into the United States in waterways like the Gulf of America, supporting Trump’s recently signed Executive Orders.
“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,” stated Lunday in a press release.
Lunday went on to explain that “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 southeast U.S. border approaching Florida to deter and prevent a maritime mass migration from Haiti and/or Cuba;
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 the U.S. Virgin Islands;
The maritime border between the Bahamas and south Florida;
The southwest maritime border between the U.S. and Mexico in the Pacific;
The maritime border between Texas and Mexico in the Gulf of America; and
Support to Customs and Border Protection on maritime portions of the southwest U.S. border.
Together, in coordination with our Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense teammates, we will detect, deter and interdict illegal migration, drug smuggling and other terrorist or hostile activity before it reaches our border,” the statement continued.