The U.S. Coast Guard responded to President Trump’s U.S. border mission by tripling the number of aircraft, boats and teams deployed to the region and took resources from international missions, the acting head of the service.
Acting Coast Guard commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday told a House panel on Wednesday. But the moves came with trade-offs, both for Coast Guard resources and for the flow and location of migrant activity.
Testifying to the House Appropriation Committee’s subcommittee on oversight Wednesday, Lunday said the service had conducted 157 alien expulsion flights to deport illegal immigrants at the administration’s behest to date. The service, he said, had also prevented more than 860 migrants from illegally entering the U.S. by sea and had already surpassed last year’s totals in interdictions of cocaine and other drugs.
Asked by Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) about the tradeoffs needed to conduct the border missions, Lunday said the Coast Guard had had to cancel two missions, including an operational deployment, to be able to plus-up its border presence.
One planned National Security Cutter patrol to the Indo-Pacific was canceled, Lunday said, adding he had consulted with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Commander Adm. Samuel Paparo before making the change. The other change was a visit support mission for USCGC Calhoun (WMSL-759) to support the Arctic Coast Guard Forum in Iceland.
“It wasn’t an operational [mission] … I want to be specific and clear,” Lunday said.
But as the U.S. military and law enforcement presence at the border has become increasingly muscular, Lunday said the Coast Guard has seen changes in how the illegal activity it monitors is taking place as well.
“When you squeeze or tighten down on one part of the land border …we see elements of that flow or that vector try to make their way across other areas of the border,” he said. “And so we’re seeing an increase in activity off Southern California. And we see it in increased smuggling attempts, moving illegal migration and also drugs, trying to get those into not only San Diego but further up the coast, up toward Los Angeles as well.”
That has translated to increased presence in those areas for the Coast Guard, Lunday said. It has also brought the human cost of the illegal activity closer to U.S. population centers: Lunday cited the May 5 death of three people, including a minor, when the smuggling vessel they were in flipped in the surf off San Diego.
“And so these efforts are critical to not only protect our border but save lives as well,” Lunday said. “So we do need increased and sustained top line funding to be able to generate and sustain the assets, ships, cutters, boats and aircraft and sensors necessary to enable us to protect that maritime approach to the U.S. border, off of California, off of Texas and the Gulf of America, and then off of Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”
Two Navy destroyers, Lunday said, were supporting the Coast Guard interdiction mission off the coast of California, underscoring the limits of the service’s resources.
“We’re continually hampered by pressure for sustaining and operating our assets, our boats and our ships … we’re not able to maintain them at the rate we need to, and so they’re not always as available as we need them to be when a mission demand occurs or an operational case is detected,” Lunday said. “… On the southern border, we need increased investment and sustainment for more modern assets that we’re able to repair and keep operating with greater availability.”
This need for resources, Underwood and other members of the committee said, underscored the need for proactive and clear communication about the Coast Guard budget and planning requirements. Underwood pointed out that the administration’s fiscal 2026 budget request may be delayed until June, while the Coast Guard’s much-anticipated Force Design 2028 plan has yet to be released.
“That’s an information flow problem, and it’s not sustainable,” she said. “Consistent, detailed communication is critical to achieving our shared goals in Congress, and that’s what we need from the Coast Guard moving forward.”
