Navy deploys further warship to curb unlawful immigration, drug smuggling on the southern border

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Navy deploys further warship to curb unlawful immigration, drug smuggling on the southern border


The Navy on Saturday introduced one other destroyer has been despatched to the southern border to help within the ongoing maritime efforts to curb unlawful immigration and drug smuggling.

Navy officers stated the USS Spruance, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, departed Naval Base San Diego Saturday to assist southern border operations.

The aim of the mission is to revive territorial integrity on the US southern border, based on a press release from the Navy. 

Spruance will improve maritime efforts, assist interagency collaboration and contribute to a coordinated and strong response to combating maritime-related terrorism, weapons proliferation, transnational crime, piracy, environmental destruction and unlawful seaborne immigration, based on the assertion.

“USS Spruance’s deployment as a part of US Northern Command’s southern border mission brings further functionality and expands the geography of distinctive army capabilities working with the Division of Homeland Safety,” stated Gen. Gregory Guillot, USNORTHCOM commander. 

The USS Spurance was deployed from the Naval Base San Diego to conduct operations on the southern border on March 22, 2025. USNORTHCOM

He added that with Spruance off the West Coast and the USS Gravely, a not too long ago deployed destroyer within the Gulf of America, the Navy’s maritime presence “contributes to the all-domain, coordinated DOD response to the Presidential Government Order and demonstrates our resolve to attain operational management of the border.”

Coast Guard officers instructed Fox Information Digital earlier this month that a whole lot of migrant boat encounters have been logged close to the San Diego coast within the final 90 days, prompting the allocation of further assets.

Spruance will convey maritime capabilities to the US Northern Command in response to government orders signed by President Donald Trump, a nationwide emergency declaration and clarification of the army’s position in defending the territorial integrity of the US.

A US army service member stands in entrance of newly put in concertina wire lining a wall between the US-Mexico border on March 21, 2025. AP
Migrants are lined up ready alongside the border to give up to the US Customs and Border Safety brokers after crossing the Rio Grande River in El Paso, Texas on Could 11, 2023. AFP by way of Getty Photos

The combatant command “continues to fill crucial capabilities gaps in assist of DHS and CBP,” based on the assertion.

The destroyer can be accompanied by an embedded US Coast Guard Regulation Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) created in 1982.

Coast Guard LEDETs perform a wide range of maritime interdiction missions, together with counter-piracy, army fight operations, alien migration interdiction, army power safety, counter-terrorism, homeland safety and humanitarian response. 

Spruance returned to Naval Base San Diego Dec. 19, 2024, after a five-month deployment to the US fifth and seventh Fleet areas of operation as a part of the Abraham Lincoln Service Strike Group (ABECSG).

Border Patrol brokers and army members stand inside a gate separating Mexico and the US in San Diego. AP

The strike group was ordered to the US Central Command space of duty to bolster US army power posture within the Center East, deter regional escalation, degrade Houthi capabilities, defend US forces and sail alongside allies and companions to advertise safety, stability and prosperity, Navy officers stated.

“Assigned destroyers of the ABECSG, to incorporate Spruance, have been important to offering a layer of protection to US forces and guaranteeing the secure passage of business vessels and accomplice nations transiting in worldwide waterways just like the Pink Sea, Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden,” based on the assertion.


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