The United States government faces a federal lawsuit over the October killing of two Trinidadian nationals in a military strike on a vessel in Caribbean waters, marking the first legal challenge to the Trump administration’s expanded military operations against suspected drug-smuggling boats.
Family members of Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, filed suit Tuesday in federal court, alleging wrongful death and extrajudicial killings. The two men were aboard a boat traveling from Venezuela to Trinidad on October 14 when it was struck by U.S. forces, killing all six occupants.
According to the lawsuit, Joseph and Samaroo had been fishing in Venezuelan coastal waters and working on farms before attempting to return to their homes in Las Cuevas, Trinidad and Tobago. Neither family received official notification of their deaths. Both held memorial services only after learning of the strike and when their loved ones never returned.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump characterized those killed as “six male narcoterrorists,” stating the vessel was “affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization” and engaged in drug trafficking. The strike represented the fifth operation in a campaign that has targeted three dozen boats and resulted in at least 125 deaths since early September, according to Defense Department figures.
The lawsuit, filed by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Seton Hall Law School Professor Jonathan Hafetz, and the ACLU of Massachusetts, invokes two federal statutes. The Death on the High Seas Act permits family members to pursue wrongful death claims for incidents occurring beyond three nautical miles from U.S. shores. The Alien Tort Statute allows foreign nationals to seek redress in federal court for violations of international law.
Central to the legal challenge is the Trump administration’s assertion to Congress that the United States operates under a non-international armed conflict with drug cartels, a designation officials cite as justification for deploying lethal military force against suspected drug vessels.
The lawsuit disputes this characterization directly. It argues that no armed conflict exists and therefore the laws of war do not apply to these operations. “These premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification,” the complaint states. “Thus, they were simply murders, ordered by individuals at the highest levels of government and obeyed by military officers in the chain of command.”
The Trinidadian government has stated publicly that it possesses no information linking either Joseph or Samaroo to criminal activity or terrorist organizations.
This legal action raises fundamental questions about the scope of executive authority to conduct military operations in international waters and the standards of evidence required before employing lethal force against foreign nationals. The case will test whether the administration’s framework of an ongoing conflict with transnational criminal organizations provides sufficient legal foundation for what amounts to summary executions without judicial process.
The families seek accountability through the federal courts for what they maintain were unlawful killings of civilians engaged in lawful travel. As this case proceeds, it will likely establish important precedents regarding the limits of military power and the rights of foreign nationals killed by U.S. forces operating outside traditional combat zones.
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