Two families filed lawsuits against the U.S. government on Tuesday, alleging that a targeted drone strike on their relatives’ boat in the Caribbean violated international law. The two men — Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41 — were Trinidanian citizens and traveling home from Venezuela when an Oct. 14 U.S. military strike killed them.
The October drone strike killed six people aboard the boat as both President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signaled the country’s shift in declaring war against fentanyl. The administration contends the strikes target narcoterrorist networks in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean that were trafficking drugs into the U.S.
“Our focus is taking out narcoterrorists and rooting out that threat that is poisoning the American people,” Kingsley Wilson, a Pentagon spokesperson, said during a Dec. 2 briefing. “Every single boat that we strike saves 25,000 American lives. That is a crucial mission to protecting the homeland, and we’re proud to be a part of it.”
Joseph and Samaroo were killed as they traveled from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago. Their home country is about 10 miles away from Venezuela, across the Gulf of Paria. The identities of the other four people killed in the strike are not known.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Seton Hall law professor Jonathan Hafetz are representing the families. They argued that the strikes were illegal because the U.S. wasn’t in a war. Even if it were, they said, the killings still would violate international laws.
“These are totally unjustifiable killings by an administration that has claimed the right to abuse executive power with impunity,” Brett Max Kaufman, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, said.
A Justice Department official told Straight Arrow News that the strikes were ordered “consistent with the laws of armed conflict.”
“The Department of Justice will continue to defend the President’s authority to use military force to protect the American people from narcoterrorists peddling poison into our communities,” they added.
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The U.S. has carried out 36 strikes against alleged drug boats since September, killing at least 117 people.
Men among hundreds killed in strikes
The Trump administration has launched at least 36 strikes since September on boats it designated as connected to cartels and drug smugglers in Trump’s quest to eradicate illicit fentanyl from the U.S. The strikes have killed at least 117, including the Trinidadian men.
The strikes were a prelude to a U.S. military action that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Both face federal drug and weapons charges in New York. Many Venezuelans celebrated Maduro’s fall, but military experts and legal scholars questioned the legality of the capture.
Hafetz, the law professor representing the families suing the U.S., said Maduro’s capture does not justify the deadly boat strikes.
“People may not simply be gunned down by the government,” Hafetz said in the ACLU’s release, “and the Trump administration’s claims to the contrary risk making America a pariah state.”
He added that whether the U.S. was in active war with Venezuela or not, the strike would be illegal, violating the laws of peacetime and the 1949 Geneva Convention, which barred countries from inhumane treatment during war.
“No matter what framework you use,” he added, “the law of peace or the law of war, this was murder, plain and simple, and demands, and warrants compensation for the families of these two victims.”
The boat strikes have been controversial in the U.S., especially after a report that Hegseth authorized a double-tap hit on survivors seen in videos clinging onto their heavily damaged boat. Democrats attempted to curb Trump’s war powers, but Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote to defeat the legislation.
Accountability
The lawsuit was filed under the Death on the High Seas Act, which allows families to seek relief for negligent or wrongful acts, and the Alien Tort Statute, which permits noncitizens to sue in U.S. courts for violations of international law, according to Cornell University Law School.
Families disputed claims their loved ones were connected to drug trafficking, adding that Joseph left behind a wife and three children, according to the ACLU. He routinely traveled between Venezuela and Trinidad for fishing and farm work. Samaroo had the same life in farming to support his family. Both men resided in Las Cuevas.
Trinidadian Foreign Minister Sean Sobers told news station CNC3 News Trinidad and Tobago in October that the government had no information linking Joseph and Samaroo to illicit drugs or weapons. No other information was provided about the other four people aboard the boat.
“Chad was a loving and caring son who was always there for me, for his wife and children, and for our whole family,” Joseph’s mother, Lenore Burnley, said in a statement. “I miss him terribly. We all do.”
Lawyers added that since the strikes, people in Trinidad do not venture far from the country’s shore in fear they would be killed. They also do not know if the Trinidadian government will intervene in the lawsuit.
“If the U.S. government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him,” Samaroo’s sister Sallycar Korasingh said in a statement. “They must be held accountable.”
Editor’s Note: Story updated to include a statement from the Justice Department.
