Trump administration sued over U.S. boat strike involving Trinidadian nationals

Family members of two Trinidadian men killed in a U.S. strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Tuesday, accusing it of wrongful death and extrajudicial killings.

The lawsuit is the first of its kind filed against the Trump administration in federal court over the Pentagon's strikes that have sunk over 30 suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since September, resulting in more than 110 deaths.

Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, were killed in the U.S. boat strike on October 14 when they were returning from Venezuela to their homes in Las Cuevas, Trinidad and Tobago.

Their family members said in the lawsuit that the men "had been fishing in waters off the Venezuelan coast and working on farms in Venezuela."

U.S. President Donald Trump said on October 14 that the strike killed all six men aboard, calling them "six male narcoterrorists" on a vessel "affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization" and engaged in drug trafficking.

The lawsuit was brought by Joseph's mother and Samaroo's sister on behalf of other surviving family members. It was filed by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU of Massachusetts, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School.