For one year, the United States has been killing people aboard small boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. The Trump administration says the strikes are part of its campaign against drug trafficking. Human rights organizations say something far more disturbing is happening: people accused of crimes are being killed without arrest, trial, or even publicly presented evidence against them.
Since the campaign began on September 2, 2025, the U.S. military has carried out 69 strikes and killed 227 people, according to Human Rights Watch. The organization says the attacks amount to unlawful extrajudicial killings and has called for those responsible to be investigated.
Death without trial
The fundamental issue is not whether drug trafficking is a serious crime. It unquestionably is. The question is whether a government can simply kill people it suspects of committing that crime.
The Trump administration has described those targeted as drug traffickers or “narcoterrorists” and argues that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with cartels. But human rights organizations and legal experts reject the idea that this transforms ordinary law enforcement into a battlefield.
Human Rights Watch argues that there is no armed conflict in the Caribbean or Pacific that would permit the United States to apply the laws of war to these killings. International human rights law therefore applies, under which intentional lethal force is generally permitted only when strictly necessary to protect human life.
The distinction is enormous. Suspected criminals are normally supposed to be arrested, charged, given access to lawyers, and tried before an independent court. A missile does none of those things.
227 people killed
The scale of the campaign is remarkable. Airwars, which has independently tracked the attacks, says at least 227 people have been killed. None of them had been formally charged with a crime before being targeted, and Airwars found no documented attempts to detain them before the strikes.
Even the identities of most victims remain unknown. Airwars says only about 11 percent of those killed have been publicly identified.
That uncertainty is particularly troubling because there is evidence that at least some victims may not have been drug traffickers at all.
The American Civil Liberties Union points to Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, two Trinidadian men killed in an October 2025 strike. Their families say they worked as a fisherman and farmhand in Venezuela and were traveling home to Trinidad and Tobago. Their relatives are now seeking accountability through the courts.
Investigative reporting and statements from Senator Tim Kaine have also raised questions about whether other innocent people may have been among those killed.
Survivors were struck again
Perhaps the most disturbing allegation concerns the very first attack.
On September 2, 2025, the United States attacked a small boat carrying 11 people in the Caribbean. According to the ACLU and Airwars, nine people were killed.
Two survived.
They reportedly clung to the wreckage for approximately 45 minutes. Instead of being rescued or detained, they were killed in a second strike.
That “double tap” attack has become one of the most controversial episodes of the entire campaign.
It also illustrates why treating alleged criminals as battlefield enemies has such profound consequences. Had those men been arrested, authorities could have investigated who they were, what they were carrying, and whether they had committed a crime. Once they were killed, that possibility disappeared with them.
Where Is the Evidence?
The United States repeatedly says the targeted vessels were involved in narcotics trafficking. Yet the government has frequently provided little public evidence supporting those claims.
After an August 25 strike that killed four people, for example, U.S. Southern Command said the vessel was involved in narcotics trafficking. The military released video of the attack but did not publicly provide evidence that the boat was carrying drugs.
This creates an extraordinary situation: the government is simultaneously acting as investigator, prosecutor, judge, and executioner, while much of the evidence that supposedly justifies the killings remains outside public scrutiny.
Even if every person killed had been transporting drugs, however, that would not automatically make the strikes lawful.
Criminality does not erase human rights.
A dangerous precedent
The implications extend far beyond Donald Trump, drugs, or Latin America.
If a government can designate suspected criminals as military enemies and kill them without trial, the same logic could potentially be expanded to other criminal organizations or individuals.
That is precisely why due process exists. It does not protect only innocent people. It prevents governments from deciding unilaterally that an accusation is sufficient justification for death.
Human Rights Watch has called on the United States to end the campaign and provide justice and reparations to victims. It has also urged Congress to consider creating a special investigative committee and called on the Justice Department to investigate the killings and pursue prosecutions where appropriate.
The ACLU is similarly demanding congressional and executive action and is seeking disclosure of a secret administration legal memorandum reportedly used to justify the strikes.
No government should have this power
Drug cartels commit horrific crimes. Governments have every right—and responsibility—to fight organized crime and protect their citizens.
But there is an enormous difference between law enforcement and execution.
A democratic government cannot claim moral superiority over authoritarian regimes while simultaneously asserting the power to kill people on the basis of accusations that have never been tested in court.
The principle should be simple: being suspected of a crime is not a death sentence.
Two hundred and twenty-seven people are now dead. Most never faced a judge. Most have not even been publicly identified.
Whatever crimes some of them may have committed, a missile cannot determine guilt.
And no president should be allowed to substitute one for a courtroom.
