Alleged drug boat (File photo

September 2, 2026 - NEW YORK – Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Trump administration’s bombing campaign of private boats in international waters, the American Civil Liberties Union is demanding immediate action from both Congress and the White House.

On Sept. 2, 2025, the United States struck a small boat in the Caribbean Sea that had 11 people on board. Nine were killed in the first strike. Two survived, clinging to the wreckage for around 45 minutes before a second “double tap” strike killed them. In the year since the Trump administration launched its campaign, the United States has conducted at least 68 strikes and killed at least 227 civilians, including the family members of two ACLU clients. This tragic milestone comes right after U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced plans to expand lethal military operations throughout Latin America.

Case: Burnley v. U.S.: Demanding Accountability on Caribbean Boat Strikes

“For a year now, the Trump administration has engaged in a terrifying, lawless killing campaign at sea and has yet to provide the public with anything beyond the most threadbare justifications,” said Jeff Stein, staff attorney with ACLU’s National Security Project. “These strikes have devastated countless families, terrified communities, and, by the administration’s own admission, failed to achieve their purported goal of stopping drugs from entering into the United States. We urge leaders in both Congress and the executive branch to put an immediate end to these strikes before anyone else is killed.”

The Trump administration has claimed, without proof, that these military strikes are targeting unnamed drug cartels. But neither domestic nor international law authorizes the use of military force against such criminal organizations. The strikes are thus premediated killings of civilians outside of armed conflict, constituting murders under domestic law and extrajudicial killings under international human rights law. Nonetheless, a secret Trump administration legal memorandum reportedly blesses the strikes as lawful and purports to immunize personnel who authorized and carried out the strikes from future criminal prosecution. Along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (“CCR”) and the New York Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU is suing for the immediate release of this memorandum.

While many of the strikes’ victims remain unknown, according to investigative journalists and Senator Tim Kaine (who has reviewed classified information about the strikes), the strikes have killed ordinary people with no connection to drug trafficking. That includes Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, two Trinidadian men who worked as fishermen and farmhands in Venezuela and were killed in an October 14, 2025, strike while returning home to see their loved ones. The ACLU, the ACLU of Massachusetts, and CCR represent Chad and Rishi’s family members in a lawsuit against the United States government seeking compensation for their wrongful deaths.

The ACLU has also called on international human rights bodies, such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to investigate the strikes and hold the perpetrators accountable.

“The international community must do everything in its power to hold the Trump administration responsible for these extrajudicial killings that are blatant violations of international law,” said Jamil Dakwar, director of ACLU’s Human Rights Program. “No other country should provide any assistance that could contribute to these unlawful U.S. government killings. We call for independent international investigation into this lawless campaign.”

Source: ACLU