ACLU says the administration claimed without proof that the strikes target drug cartels
National civil-liberties organization and counsel to families of two men killed in an October 2025 strike, in a news release
“The Trump administration has claimed, without proof, that these military strikes are targeting unnamed drug cartels. But neither domestic nor international law authorizes the use of military force against such criminal organizations.”
Source and context
Official statement
About this source
ACLU news release ahead of the campaign's first anniversary. The ACLU represents the families of two men killed in an October 2025 strike and is suing with the Center for Constitutional Rights and the New York Civil Liberties Union for release of a Justice Department memorandum on the strikes.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
The ACLU released the statement on September 1, 2026, ahead of the first anniversary of the campaign's first strike and 18 days before the September 19 strike.
After the quotation
The release said the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the New York Civil Liberties Union are suing for release of a secret Justice Department memorandum that reportedly treats the strikes as lawful.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Was the U.S. military's September 19 Caribbean boat strike justified by evidence of narcotics trafficking?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
Measured against the campaign the September 19 strike belongs to and the government's stated basis for such strikes, the ACLU says the government's claim about its targets is unproven and that the law does not authorize military force against them, which is an express condemnation.
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Was the U.S. military's September 19 Caribbean boat strike justified by evidence of narcotics trafficking?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
More from this case
Read the full case“Donald Trump is dropping bombs across the Caribbean and Pacific in blatant violation of the law and of fundamental human rights … This has done nothing to stop the flow of drugs or to make Americans safer. Instead, it has left hundreds dead, families devastated, and communities in fear. Let us call these attacks what they are: illegal extrajudicial killings.”Read statement
“The cartels are the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere, not good people. They're enemies at war with civilization, using murder, rape, torture, and extortion as instruments of terror. … they should be killed, exiled, or detained as enemy combatants without the possibility of release, which is what we're doing. To that end, the United States has carried out dozens of strikes on cartel drug boats, destroying 97% of the drugs coming into the ocean and sea.”Read statement
“All of these decisive strikes have been against designated narcoterrorists bringing deadly poison to our shores, and the President will continue to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice”Read statement