The Coast Guard is redeploying resources to target immigrants trying to get to US shores — part of an effort to fulfill President Donald Trump’s new anti-migrant mandate, the federal agency said.
The move comes in response to several executive orders signed by Trump within hours of returning to the White House on a mission to deport millions of illegal immigrants — and stop others from getting here.
“The US Coast Guard is the world’s premiere maritime law enforcement agency, vital to protecting America’s maritime borders, territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Admiral Kevin Lunday, the Coast Guard’s acting commandant, said in a statement released this week.
“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,” Lunday said.
The Guard’s new high-seas focus includes the southeast shoreline “to deter and prevent a maritime mass migration from Haiti and/or Cuba,” the release said.
Coast Guard cutters and aircraft will also step up patrols around Alaska and Hawaii, and US territories like Guam American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, the agency said.
Additional areas of focus will be the maritime borders between the US and the Bahamas, Mexico.
The Coast Guard’s mission includes high-seas rescues and intercepting drug and human smugglers from getting their wares to US shores — but has also include intercepting migrants in the past.
Most recently, a Coast Guard crew on Monday seized a “panga-style” boat off the coast of Oceanside, California, carrying 26 illegal immigrants from Mexico, China, Vietman and elsewhere, the agency said.
Now, it’ll be laser-focused on that part of their mission.
“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,” this week’s press release said.
Read the full article here