It is important we know the real stories of Trump’s murder victims. The two men were not involved in drug smuggling

Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo (ACLU)

The Trump regime calls those it kills and abuses “terrorists.” Renee Good was defamed as a “domestic terrorist.” She was a mother, a daughter, a wife, a neighbor. Alex Pretti was also labeled a “domestic terrorist.” He was a beloved ICU nurse at the VA. Approximately 125 people that the Trump regime illegally killed on the high seas were dubbed “narco-terrorists.” That too is a lie. Indeed, whenever you hear “domestic terrorist” uttered by this administration, you should understand that means ‘someone a fascist government had no right to kill.’

The family of two innocent men murdered on the high seas have brought suit against the Trump regime. The ACLU announced on Friday: Today, family members of two Trinidadian men killed in a U.S. missile strike in October are suing the U.S. government for wrongful death and extrajudicial killing. Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, were killed in one of the 36 strikes the Trump administration has launched against civilian boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean. At least 125 people have been killed in these strikes since September 2025.

It is important we know the real stories of Trump’s murder victims. The two men were not involved in drug smuggling.

Chad Joseph, according to the complaint, “lived with his wife and their three children in Las Cuevas, Trinidad.” He traveled to Venezuela to fish and find farmwork. “On October 12, he called his wife to let her know that he had found a boat ride home from Venezuela and would see her in a couple of days.” His family never heard from him. The U.S. military killed him in violation of domestic and international law.

Rishi Samaroo was born in Trinidad, served 15 years for involvement in a homicide, and was, after his release,” living in Las Cuevas, “where he fished and worked in construction to support himself and his family.” The ACLU recounts: In August 2025, he let his family know that he was working on a farm in Venezuela, taking care of goats and cows and making cheese. He would call his family almost every day when he was in Venezuela, and in an Oct. 12 call with [his sister], he told her he was returning home to Trinidad and would see her in a few days because their mother had fallen ill, and he wanted to help take care of her.

He, too, was murdered without provocation or justification. According to the complaint, the two men were among a group of six killed in an Oct. 14 extrajudicial killing. “The October 14 attack was part of an unprecedented and manifestly unlawful U.S. military campaign of lethal strikes against small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean,” the complaint alleges. “These premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification. 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 complaint reminds us that Trump’s regime has never provided proof that the victims were doing anything wrong: The government has not publicly identified all of the drug cartels with which it claims to be at war, and with respect to nearly all its boat strikes, including the one on October 14, it has not identified any cartel it was purportedly targeting. Nor has the government made public any evidence at all to support its assertions that the boats it has blown up and the people it has killed were members of, or even affiliated with, drug cartels. Nor has the government provided any public evidence that targeted boats were, in fact, carrying drugs or that the occupants were trafficking them, let alone that any such drugs were destined for the United States.

Trump delivers remarks at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, following Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)

Just as there is no factual basis for targeting these victims, there is no legal justification. “First, because there is, in fact, no non-international armed conflict with the drug cartels purportedly targeted in the strikes (and no evidence that the boats targeted are associated with cartels), the killings violate the bedrock prohibition against extrajudicial killing and are simply murders on the high seas,” the complaint states. And even if the U.S. was engaged in a “non-international armed conflict,” the strikes would be war crimes under international and domestic law.

The throughline between unjustified murders in the name of fighting “narco-terrorists” and the murders of and assaults on Americans on the streets of Minneapolis in the name of fighting “domestic terrorists” should not be overlooked. The Trump regime acts as if throwing around terms like “terrorist” means it can kill anyone—or as if their use of the word is sufficient justification to repress American philanthropic groups, political critics, or even news reporters.

If “terrorism” has any meaning, it applies to this government’s use of lethal force to instill fear domestically and bully its way around the globe. Whether it is two innocent fishermen, a mother in her SUV, or an ICE nurse, Americans should refuse to accept the excuses of a regime that repeatedly lies about its motives, its conduct, and its victims. The only terrorists, tragically, operating on American soil are acting under the auspices of the U.S. government. It is time to start applying the term to those who are actually perpetrating the terror.

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