A U.S. Navy destroyer, designed to intercept ballistic missiles, has been deployed to the southern border as part of President Trump's push to seal the border and crack down on immigration, defense officials said.
The USS Gravely set sail on Saturday from Naval Weapons Station Yorktown in Virginia. The warship previously served in the Middle East, where it was responsible for shooting down missiles fired by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.
Now, it will help assist U.S. Northern Command in its mission to "protect the United States' territorial integrity, sovereignty, and security," Gen. Gregory Guillot, who oversees U.S. Northern Command, said in a statement. The command is the Defense Department's operation lead in using military forces to tighten border security.
The dispatch of the Gravely is the latest move under Trump's executive order from January declaring a national emergency at the United States' southern border.
It's in addition to the thousands of active-duty troops ordered to the U.S.-Mexico border. As of last Tuesday, about 9,600 service members had been deployed or were scheduled to deploy there, according to U.S. Northern Command. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has also been developing plans to build immigration detention facilities on U.S. military bases around the country.
Defense officials did not clarify where exactly the Gravely will travel to, except to say it will operate in both domestic and international waters.
More generally, U.S. Northern Command's area of responsibility includes "the continental United States, Alaska, Canada, Mexico and the surrounding water out to approximately 500 nautical miles," the military headquarters' website reads. It also includes the Straits of Florida, parts of the Bahamas, the Caribbean region, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump renamed the Gulf of America in one of his first executive actions.
The ship will carry members of a U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment. Defense officials said the Navy destroyer will be part of law enforcement missions including "maritime related terrorism, weapons proliferation, transnational crime, piracy, environmental destruction, and illegal seaborne immigration."
At 509 feet long and capable of holding over 300 crew members, the Gravely is considered larger than any Coast Guard vessels.
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