The U.S. Coast Guard is deploying naval resources along the border with Cuba, following Trump's orders to strengthen security and curb irregular migration and drug trafficking.
The U.S. Coast Guard initiated an immediate deployment of naval assets at the maritime border with Cuba on Tuesday, in response to executive orders issued by the White House under the new administration of Donald Trump.
This movement, which according to the USCG aims to strengthen security in the waters near the island and other key areas, is part of the new president's promises to curb irregular migration and drug trafficking in the international waters bordering the U.S.
Linda Fagan, the first female admiral of the U.S. Coast Guard, was dismissed by the Trump administration on Monday without explanation.
Fagan, a commandant admiral who was the first female uniformed leader of the Armed Forces branch in U.S. history, was relieved of her duties by acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamin Huffman.
Adm. Kevin Lunday, the former vice commandant of the Coast Guard, will serve as acting commandant in the meantime.
Admiral Kevin Lunday, acting commander of the Coast Guard, stated in a statement that the agency "is the world's foremost maritime safety agency, vital for protecting the maritime borders of America, its territorial integrity, and sovereignty."
"According to the president's executive orders, I have instructed my operational commanders to immediately deploy assets—cutters, aircraft, vessels, and deployable specialized forces—to enhance the presence of the Coast Guard, focusing on key areas," he stated.
The specific areas of focus include the southeast border of the U.S., extending into Florida, in order to deter and prevent massive migration from Haiti and Cuba.
The maritime border around Alaska, Hawai’i, and the U.S. territories, including Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Also the maritime border between the Bahamas and southern Florida and the southwestern maritime border between the U.S. and Mexico in the Pacific.
And the maritime boundary between Texas and Mexico in the Gulf of Mexico.
Lunday added that these efforts are being carried out in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense of the United States with the aim of detecting, deterring, and disrupting illegal migration, drug trafficking, and other terrorist or hostile activities before they reach our borders.
This deployment comes as part of a broader series of measures announced by the Trump administration to tighten border control.
The new acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Benjamine Huffman, also confirmed this Tuesday the start of a new phase of raids against undocumented migrants, focused on those with criminal records.
The new policies include the revocation of the Biden administration's guidelines, which limited the enforcement of immigration law in sensitive areas such as schools and churches, as well as the cancellation of the humanitarian parole program, which had allowed the temporary entry of more than 1.5 million migrants from countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, and Nicaragua.
The humanitarian parole program will be replaced by a case-by-case assessment, which could further complicate legal access to the country for thousands of migrants.
ociete Generale SA and BNP Paribas SA on Thursday won the dismissal of a lawsuit in New York accusing them of trafficking in assets that Fidel Castro's government seized in 1960 from the former owners of a Cuban bank.
The case had sought damages estimated at several hundred million dollars.
It was brought by 12 heirs, mostly children and grandchildren, of Carlos and Pura Nuñez, who had owned Banco Nuñez before and during the Cuban Revolution.
SocGen and Paribas were accused of evading U.S. sanctions by doing business with Cuba's central bank after it nationalized and absorbed Banco Nuñez and other lenders, resulting in more than $1 billion of profit for the French banks since 2000.
But in Thursday's decision, U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil said that despite claims by a SocGen whistleblower, the heirs lacked proof that SocGen funds kept flowing through Banco Nacional de Cuba even after the French bank was warned about it.
The Manhattan judge also said she lacked jurisdiction over BNP Paribas, which according to the heirs "routinely" provided cash in Switzerland to the Cuban central bank and transacted with entities that did business with it.
Vyskocil also said many claims against BNP Paribas were too old.
Lawyers for the heirs did not immediately respond to requests for comment. SocGen and BNP Paribas declined to comment.
The heirs had sued under the Helms-Burton Act, a 1996 U.S. law that allows lawsuits against traffickers in property confiscated by Cuba's government.
Litigation was suspended for 23 years because of international opposition and concern U.S. courts could be flooded by lawsuits.
The Trump administration lifted the suspension in April 2019, to boost pressure on Havana to end Cuban support for Venezuela's socialist/communist Dictator Nicolas Maduro.
(Source: IBT)
We'll Meet Again - A PBS Documentary - Join Ann Curry as two men search for the people who helped them come to the U.S. when they fled Castro’s Cuba. One hopes to find the family who took him in as a boy while another looks for the shrimp boat skipper who brought him to safety.