DHS reinstates Coast Guard members discharged over COVID shot - Spectrum News

WASHINGTON — Dozens of members of the U.S. Coast Guard who were discharged from service over the COVID-19 vaccine have been reinstated as part of the Trump administration’s effort to reverse the requirements put in place during the pandemic under former Democratic President Joe Biden, the Department of Homeland Security announced.

In a statement, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the 56 members being reinstated for refusing the vaccine will also receive back pay, calling the Biden administration’s requirements around the shot “unconstitutional, un-American, and a gross violation of personal freedom.”

“President Trump is righting these wrongs and returning those unjustly removed members to service,” Noem’s statement continued. “This decision to reinstate these members of the Coast Guard is a major step in the right direction.”

As the virus still had its grip on the country in 2021, the Pentagon, under then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, laid out a plan to require members of the U.S. military, including those in the Coast Guard, to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, adding to the list of other shots already required. The move quickly got the backing of Biden, who said at the time that it would help keep service members “healthy, to better protect their families, and to ensure that our force is ready to operate anywhere in the world.”

Months later, the administration started to carry out disciplinary actions, including discharges, for those who refused. Late last year, the Defense Department said more than 8,000 service members were involuntarily dismissed over the COVID vaccine between August 2021 and January 2023 as it announced an effort to upgrade discharge characterizations.

Republicans have long decried such requirements put in place in the Democratic administration as part of their larger criticism of other mandates, including those around masks, during the pandemic.

The COVID vaccine requirements for military and Coast Guard members were rescinded by Austin in January 2023, DHS noted.

Upon his return to the White House last year, President Donald Trump signed an order directing his secretaries of defense and homeland security to reverse the impacts of the mandate. That included offering reinstatement to those dismissed from service solely over the vaccine requirement and allowing those discharged to “revert to their former rank and receive full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation.”

The move to reinstate and provide back pay to the members comes as significant changes have been made to U.S. immunization practices, and specifically the COVID shot, during the Trump administration with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a long and well-documented history of vaccine skepticism, in charge of the Health and Human Services Department. In a major move last year, Kennedy fired all 17 members of a federal committee of outside advisers that provides vaccine recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in order to name his own picks.

The Department of Homeland Security, where the Coast Guard is housed, is currently shut down amid a battle between Democrats and Republicans over changes to the Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement. Vice Adm. Thomas Allan, the Coast Guard's vice commandant, warned earlier this month that a lapse in funding at the department would disrupt pay for 56,000 active duty, reserve and civilian personnel.