Navy warship once used to fight the Houthis is now heading to the U.S. southern border

A Navy warship that had been used to fight Houthi rebels in the Middle East is being deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border to provide added security.

The USS Gravely, which was used in combat in the Middle East last year, will now be heading to the Mexico border, Defense Department officials announced over the weekend, the same day the vessel departed the Naval Weapons Station Yorktown in Virginia.

The department said the ship will contribute to military efforts in response to President Donald Trump’s immigration executive orders to “restore integrity at the U.S. southern border,” the statement read. “Gravely reinforces the nation’s commitment to border security by enhancing maritime efforts and supporting interagency collaboration.”

The effort is part of an interagency response to combating maritime-related terrorism, weapons proliferation, transnational crime, piracy, environmental destruction and illegal seaborne immigration.

“Gravely’s sea-going capacity improves our ability to protect the United States’ territorial integrity, sovereignty, and security,” said General Gregory Guillot, Commander, U.S. Northern Command.

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Deploying the vessel is unusual because the waters in the area - which Trump has renamed the Gulf of America from the Gulf of Mexico - are usually protected by the U.S. Coast Guard.

A U.S. Coast Guard law enforcement detachment will be placed on the ship, signaling that it could be utilized against migrants found in the ocean. The U.S. Coast Guard is the country’s primary maritime law enforcement agency.

The Independent has contacted the Pentagon for additional information. Officials did not release additional details about the vessel’s potential missions.

The USS Gravely is a missile destroyer. It was named after Vice Admiral Samuel Gravely Jr., the first Black man to become an admiral and commander of a warship and fleet. He served from 1944 until his retirement in 1980.

The vessel spans 510 feet in length and was first deployed in 1991.More than 320 crew members operate the ship and its weapons, including missiles, torpedoes and guns. There are also helicopters on board the ship equipped with torpedoes and missiles.

The ship had previously been used in a nine-month deployment and played a pivotal role in providing air defense for a strike group conducting missions against Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and escorting shipping through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, officials said in July.