The Department of Homeland Security announced that 56 members of the U.S. Coast Guard have been reinstated with back pay after being dismissed under the Biden administration for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.
“56 members of the United States Coast Guard who were kicked out of the service over the COVID-19 vaccine have finally been reinstated with back pay—this is a victory for religious, personal, and medical freedom for all Americans — both in and out of uniform,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. “The last administration’s vaccine mandates were unconstitutional, un-American, and a gross violation of personal freedom. It was no way to treat the men and women who put everything on the line to keep our country safe.”
“President Trump is righting these wrongs and returning those unjustly removed members to service,” she said. “This decision to reinstate these members of the Coast Guard is a major step in the right direction.”
The service members’ records will reflect a period of “unbroken and continuous active service between the date of their vaccine-related discharge and their reinstatement to Coast Guard duty,” DHS explained.
The three-member panel of the Board for Correction of Military Records of the Coast Guard wrote in its reinstatement decision that it is “satisfied with the Coast Guard’s review of the military records of the group applicants and, based on its own review of the administrative record, agrees that 56 of the 59 originally identified members are entitled to and should be granted relief.”
The move aligns with President Trump’s 2025 executive order calling for the reinstatement of service members discharged over the vaccine. The order described the 2021 vaccine mandate as “unfair, overbroad, and completely unnecessary.”
