Two families in Trinidad and Tobago sued the U.S. government on Tuesday, alleging the Trump administration unlawfully killed their relatives in one of its missile strikes on boats in the Caribbean.
The lawsuit says the Oct. 14 strike killed all six people on board, including 26-year-old Chad Joseph and 41-year-old Rishi Samaroo, who the lawsuit describes as workers who had been fishing and doing farm work in Venezuela and were headed home to Las Cuevas, Trinidad and Tobago.
The case is the first wrongful death lawsuit filed against the administration over a growing U.S. military campaign dubbed Operation Southern Spear that has targeted alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
It is also the first case that would put the legality of the strike campaign before a federal judge.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. It was brought by Joseph’s mother, Lenore Burnley, and Samaroo’s sister, Sallycar Korasingh, with lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and other counsel listed in the complaint.
At the center of the dispute is whether the U.S. had legal authority to use lethal force. The complaint describes the strike as “premeditated and intentional” killings without any “plausible legal justification.”
The families are suing under the Death on the High Seas Act and the Alien Tort Statute, arguing the strike was an unlawful killing under international law.
They are seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
The administration has defended the strikes as necessary to stop drugs before they reach the United States. President Donald Trump announced the Oct. 14 strike in a social media post and described those killed as “narcoterrorists.” The lawsuit points to a video Trump posted of the strike on the boat. At least 125 people have been killed in the strikes since September.
But the lawsuit says the government has not publicly identified the cartels it claims to be targeting in most strikes, or produced public evidence that the boats carried drugs or that those killed were cartel members or affiliates. It also cites statements attributed to Trinidad’s government saying it has no information linking Joseph or Samaroo to illegal activity, and no information that victims of U.S. strikes possessed drugs, guns, or small arms.
The filing lays out the last contact each man had with his family. It says Joseph’s last call was Oct. 12, when he told his wife he’d found a boat home. Joseph had tried to return home earlier in the summer, but his boat “encountered engine trouble” and turned back to Venezuela. Samaroo spoke to his sister the same day, saying he was heading back, and sent a photo in a life jacket. Samaroo was heading back to care for his ill mother after being released early on parole for homicide, according to the suit. Neither man was heard from again.
The families say they were never formally notified of their relative’s death. After news of the strike, they called the men repeatedly, but the phones went dead. The suit says Samaroo’s family filed a missing-person report and sought records through a Trinidad FOI request, without response.
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