Coast Guard orders forces to ‘Gulf of America’ after admiral ousted
The Coast Guard will surge additional resources to the “Gulf of America” and several other locations, the service said in a statement Tuesday, after the Trump administration sacked its top admiral and alleged that she had failed to prioritize the security of U.S. borders.
The statement marked one of the U.S. government’s first official uses of President Donald Trump’s desired name for the Gulf of Mexico, a policy shift that has elicited derision from his domestic political foes and leaders in Mexico. Trump signed an executive order soon after his inauguration Monday setting a 30-day deadline for the Interior Department to take “all appropriate action” needed to codify the new name.
Asked about the statement’s reference to “Gulf of America,” Coast Guard officials cited Trump’s executive order. The Defense Department, which also is preparing to deploy additional forces in support of the new administration’s emphasis on border security, said it had no updates to provide when asked whether the Pentagon will also adopt Trump’s desired name for the gulf.
The Coast Guard said in its statement that, in addition to its deployments to the Gulf of Mexico, commanders will increase the service’s presence in waterways approaching Florida and the maritime border around Alaska, California, Hawaii, Texas, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The Coast Guard has carried out such operations for years, and it was not immediately clear Wednesday how that may evolve under Trump, who has made border security central to his administration’s agenda. In the closing days of the Biden administration, those operations included the interdiction of 15 migrants off Point Loma in California and the interdiction of 58 migrants off the coast of Puerto Rico. In the latter case, Coast Guard personnel returned the individuals involved to the Dominican Republic, the service said.
U.S. defense officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss military preparations, said they have spent weeks devising options for Trump to bolster U.S. forces along the southern border. In another executive order issued Monday, Trump directed U.S. Northern Command, which oversees military operations in North America, to develop a plan within 30 days.
The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it had “terminated” Adm. Linda Fagan as commandant, alleging that she had performed poorly as the service’s top officer and focused too much on diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the expense of homeland defense. She was replaced on an acting basis with the service’s No. 2 officer, Adm. Kevin Lunday, who in Wednesday’s statement touted the service as “the world’s premiere maritime law enforcement agency” and said he had directed subordinate military officials to “immediately surge” ships, aircraft, boats and “specialized forces” in response to Trump’s order.
“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,” Lunday said.
Fagan, 61, had been Coast Guard commandant since 2022, after President Joe Biden selected her for the post. She made history as the first woman to lead a branch of the U.S. military.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Coast Guard, said in a written statement Tuesday that Fagan had been ousted “because of her leadership deficiencies, operational failures, and inability to advance the strategic objectives of the U.S. Coast Guard.” But the statement was one-sided and omitted key context while laying out the Trump administration’s allegations.
For instance, while DHS said Fagan had overseen “significant shortfalls” in recruiting, the service met its goal for new personnel in 2024 after failing to do so each year since 2017, well before her tenure.
The DHS statement also cited an “erosion of trust” as a result of the service’s handling of Operation Fouled Anchor, an investigation in which numerous allegations of sexual assault and abuse at the Coast Guard Academy were hidden from Congress and the public. An extensive report detailing the cases was completed in January 2020, during Trump’s first term, but it was withheld by Fagan’s predecessor as commandant, Adm. Karl Schultz.