US Navy sends second destroyer to patrol its own southern border
USS Spruance, which will patrol the US southern border. (Photo: US Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Taylor Crenshaw)
The USS Spruance will help enforce anti-smuggling and anti-immigration laws.
The US Navy (USN) has despatched a second Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, USS Spruance, to patrol its southern border to counter drug and weapons smuggling and illegal immigration.
The Spruance was recently deployed in the Red Sea, fighting the Houthis, but has now been reassigned to domestic border protection duties.
It will join the USS Gravely, another Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, in what US Northern Command called an attempt to “restore territorial integrity”.
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The Spruance and the Gravely will each be accompanied by a US Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment, which specialise in anti-piracy, counterterrorism and anti-immigration missions.
Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are often thought of as the USN’s “workhorse” vessels on account of their mission flexibility. Both the Spruance and the Gravely are part of the class’s Flight IIA cohort, of which there are currently 42 in service, with a total of 47 to be built.
According to Shephard Defence Insight, the destroyers are fitted with two Lockheed Martin Mk41 vertical launch systems (VLS) with 96 cells, and can also fire the Tomahawk Block II and Block IV SLCM's arming the vessels along with the Raytheon Standard SM-2 Block III and IVA SAMs.
That is a lot of firepower to enforce anti-smuggling and anti-immigration laws, but those are issues on which President Trump campaigned and was elected, and the flexibility of the Arleigh Burke destroyer lends itself to sudden changes of mission profile.
Explaining the southern border deployment of the Spruance, Gen. Gregory Guillot, Commander of Northcom, said the destroyer would “bring additional capability and expands the geography of unique military capabilities working with the Department of Homeland Security”.
He added that it would act as part of “the all-domain, coordinated DOD response to the Presidential Executive Order and demonstrate our resolve to achieve operational control of the border”.
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