First wrongful death lawsuit filed against Trump administration over drug boat strikes
The families of two Trinidadian men who were killed in an Oct. 14 strike on an alleged drug boat accused the U.S. in a lawsuit Tuesday of wrongful death and extrajudicial killings.
Jan. 27, 2026, 10:13 AM GMT-5 / Updated Jan. 27, 2026, 6:03 PM GMT-5 / By
Courtney Kube
The lawsuit is the first of its kind to be filed against the Trump administration in federal court over its
military campaign against alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, were killed in the U.S. military strike Oct. 14 while they were on a boat traveling from Venezuela to Trinidad, their family members allege in the lawsuit. The lawsuit says Joseph and Samaroo “had been fishing in waters off the Venezuelan coast and working on farms in Venezuela.” It says they were returning to their homes in Las Cuevas in Trinidad and Tobago when their boat was struck.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump said the strike killed all six men on the boat.
Trump described them as “six male narcoterrorists” and said that the boat was “affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization” and that it “was trafficking narcotics.” The strike was the administration’s fifth in a campaign that has struck three dozen boats and killed at least 125 people, according to the Defense Department, since it began in early September. ...
It says the Oct. 14 airstrike violated two federal statutes: the Death on the High Seas Act, which allows family members to sue over wrongful deaths that occur more than 3 nautical miles from the U.S., and the Alien Tort Statute, which allows foreign nationals to sue in federal court over violations of international law.
The Trump administration has told members of Congress that the U.S. is in a non-international armed conflict with drug cartels, citing that as justification for using lethal military force against alleged drug boats. ...
“These premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification,” the lawsuit says. “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 families of two Trinidadian men who were killed in an Oct. 14 strike on an alleged drug boat accused the U.S. in a lawsuit Tuesday of wrongful death and extrajudicial killings.
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