The U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday night sent ships and boats to South Florida and other parts of the country to increase maritime migration countermeasures efforts to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to deploy military force to protect the border. announced that it would send an aircraft. .
The announcement came on the same day that Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamin Huffman fired Adm. Linda Fagan, the Coast Guard commander responsible for maritime security. Fagan was not only the first woman to lead the Coast Guard, but also the first uniformed woman to lead a branch of the military.
Although the Coast Guard is a military branch, it is also a federal law enforcement agency, so it is under the direction of the Department of Homeland Security.
The acting commander, Adm. Kevin Lunday, issued a statement Tuesday saying the decision to flood South Florida and the rest of the U.S. maritime border with more Coast Guard personnel and assets follows President Trump’s executive order on border security. He pointed out that it should be followed.
Runday said he directed the agency’s operations commander to rush “cutters, aircraft, boats, and deployable special forces” to the Florida Straits “to deter and interdict mass maritime movements from Haiti and Cuba.” said.
Other areas of the U.S. and its territories where Coast Guard presence will increase include the maritime borders of the Bahamas and Florida, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Somoa and Puerto Rico, according to the announcement. and the US Virgin Islands.
The Coast Guard will also deploy personnel and assets to the Southwest Maritime Border between Texas and Mexico in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, the statement said, referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” ). President Trump issued a new executive order on Monday.
Mr. Runday also directed the Coast Guard to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s anti-immigrant efforts in the waters of the southwestern U.S. border.
Maritime migration from both Cuba and Haiti has slowed significantly since the Biden administration increased troops to South Florida and the Keys after a surge of landings overwhelmed local law enforcement in late 2022 and early 2023. I am doing it.
So many people arrived from Cuba during this time that the federal government was forced to close Dry Tortugas National Park, about 110 miles from Key West, in January 2023. About 300 people from Cuba landed at the park in the weeks after the new president took office. New Year’s Day that year.
But it wasn’t until the Florida National Guard, Florida Highway Patrol, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers, as well as Coast Guard and Customs Enforcement agents from the federal government, began increasing patrols in the Keys. has slowed down rapidly.
Spend your days with Haze
Subscribe to the free Stephinitely Newsletter
Columnist Stephanie Hayes shares her thoughts, feelings, and interesting business stories every Monday.
Everyone is registered!
Want more free weekly newsletters in your inbox? Get started.
consider all options
Migrant ships are still anchored along the Florida Strait, but arrivals have gone from almost daily to just once a month.
Haitian migrant arrivals also increased significantly from 2022 to 2023, although they arrived in larger ships and groups less frequently than migrants coming from Cuba. However, despite continued turmoil and increased violence by armed groups, maritime migration from Haiti to South Florida has also declined significantly.
The last large-scale arrival of Haitians in South Florida was in June, when a sailboat carrying about 120 people arrived in Key West.
