Since 1790, the Coast Guard has served as America's principal "law of the sea" agency. Originally established by Alexander Hamilton as the Revenue Marine, the Coast Guard began with the mission of enforcing import tariffs. Since then its maritime-security responsibilities have expanded exponentially, and almost always synergistically, to include the enforcement of all federal laws at sea--from stopping pirates to enforcing vessel-safety regulations and fisheries conservation laws to interdicting drug and migrant smugglers. Because the Coast Guard has law-enforcement authority, it can apprehend foreign fishing vessels engaged in poaching, interdict vessels carrying illegal drugs and undocumented migrants, and stop unsafe boaters.Today, U.S. national-security interests can no longer be defined solely in terms of direct military threats to America and its allies. Working under the necessarily broader current definition of national security, the Coast Guard is seeking to reduce the risk from terrorism to U.S. passengers at foreign and domestic ports and in designated waterfront facilities, but it faces the extremely difficult challenge of enforcing increasingly complex laws against highly sophisticated adversaries. Coast Guard boarding teams deal continuously with violations of multinational fisheries agreements and foil high-tech attempts to smuggle drugs into the United States.
The influx of illegal drugs is one of America's maritime-security problems.
As the nation's leading maritime agency in protecting the U.S. public from
the drug threat, the Coast Guard plays a key role in implementing the President's
national drug-control strategy. Despite the vast complications in enforcement,
the Coast Guard performs this new task with only modest additional funding.
A tremendous number of assets are required to patrol the long coastlines
of the United States and the even greater expanse of waters encompassing
the maritime "transit zones" used by drug smugglers. This six-million-square-mile
area, roughly the size of the continental United States itself, includes
the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Eastern Pacific.
The protection of U.S. living marine resources--primarily through the detection and deterrence of illegal fishing activity--is another of the Coast Guard's historic mission areas of responsibility that continues to expand. Beginning with the protection of the Bering Sea fur seal and sea otter herds and continuing through the vast expansion following World War II in the size and efficiency of global fishing fleets, Coast Guard responsibilities in this mission area now include enforcement of laws and treaties in the 3.36-million-square-mile U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the largest in the world.
The flood of undocumented migrants in boats onto America’s shores
is both a threat to human life and a violation of U.S. and international
laws. Coast Guard migrant-interdiction operations are as much humanitarian
efforts as they are law-enforcement missions. In fact, the majority of migrant
interdiction cases handled by the Coast Guard actually begin as search-and-rescue
missions, usually on the high seas rather than in U.S. coastal waters. The
Coast Guard is the lead agency for the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws
at sea, stressing sensitivity in dealing with undocumented migrants in all
realms: mass migration, asylum/refugee requests, smuggling and repatriation.
In its effort to increase U.S. security against undocumented migrations,
the Coast Guard constantly monitors maritime transit zones, interdicting
undocumented migrants, rescuing people from sinking or unsafe vessels, providing
humanitarian assistance, and training nations to discourage undocumented
migration into the United States.
Drug Interdiction:
http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-o/g-opl/Drugs/Drugs.htmAlien Migrant Interdiction:
http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-o/g-opl/AMIO/AMIO.htmEEZ & Living Marine Resource:
http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-o/g-opl/LMR/LMR.htmGeneral Maritime Law:
http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-o/g-opl/Welcome.htmLaw/Treaty Enforcement:
http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-o/g-opl/Welcome.htm