illegal orders – Across the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, U.S. strikes on boats have killed more than 200 people in the past nine months, triggering fierce legal debate over whether service members were handed orders that should be refused. Demonstrators have protested ou
For the third time in months, protesters gathered outside the White House—this time to demand answers about U.S. military strikes on boats near Venezuela and the buildup to a possible ground assault. Inside the policy arguments and classified briefings, the human toll is hard to miss: the U.S. military has killed more than 200 people in boat strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific over the last nine months.
The dispute is not about whether the strikes happened. It is about what service members were ordered to do—and whether they were legally allowed to do it.
Scores of legal experts and former military lawyers have characterized the orders behind the boat strikes. carried out under the Trump administration’s approach. as illegal—describing them as extrajudicial killings or murders. U.S. law requires service members to refuse illegal orders, yet there is no record of troops refusing to follow these orders. Even so. anonymous legal hotlines for military members say they have fielded calls from service members wrestling with the legality of what they were asked to carry out.
The Senate budget hearing in Washington also drew a sharp line between legal assurances and the concerns on the ground. At a June 2 Senate budget hearing. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said every boat strike “has a legal officer on the deck that has to make a determination about whether the call is legal or not.”.
After that, the Pentagon pointed questions about legality outward—referring them to U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in South America and the Caribbean. Southern Command said in a statement that “All operations are conducted deliberately and lawfully, in full compliance with U.S. and international law. including the law of armed conflict.” It added that “All targeting criteria are developed according to legal. operational. and intelligence requirements.”.
Still, families and advocates say legality is precisely what remains unresolved.
Before the Trump-era boat strikes. the United States treated the drug trade as a law enforcement issue and tasked the Coast Guard with interdicting boats trying to bring drugs into the country. Since then. the Trump administration has released no evidence that any suspected narco-trafficking boats carried drugs or that their occupants worked for drug cartels. It has also never identified the people it killed—though a handful of names have been published in news reports.
Family members have filed lawsuits naming relatives they allege were murdered by the United States.
The Pentagon has published dozens of videos of the attacks on social media—grainy, black and white clips taken from above, showing boats speeding through the water before they explode into balls of flame. Trump officials have continued to say the attacks are lawful.
Dan Maurer, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former military lawyer, said he hoped the strikes would become a warning sign for the future. “It’s going to be a shameful episode in the history of American military operations, and I hope it becomes a case study in what not to do,” he said.
Legal hotlines get calls from boat strike operators
Two organizations that provide anonymous legal advice for military members said they have received calls from service members worried the boat strikes are illegal. Steve Woolford. a resource counselor with Quaker House and the GI Rights Hotline. said he spoke with about four service members involved in the operation who were seeking legal and ethical guidance.
One caller discussed helping plan a strike, Woolford said. Two others were ordered to execute strikes. Woolford also said one of the callers told him, “I think this is exactly what was described as a war crime.”
Woolford said some callers were connected to lawyers, but he wasn’t aware of anyone who had refused an order or taken legal action. He said callers were “more scared now that they’d be punished if they did bring something up.”
Brenner Fissell. the vice president of the National Institute for Military Justice. said the Institute’s Orders Project receives a “steady but small number of calls. ” including from service members concerned the boat strikes are illegal. He said some callers expressed a “sense of being asked to do things that one is deeply conflicted with the morality of doing.”.
Fissell added that there is a “general perception that no one is ever going to be prosecuted for this because Trump will be able to issue pardons preemptively.”
If a service member refuses an order, a case may be brought before a military judge to determine whether the order was lawful. But before any such call is made, service members could be removed from duty immediately.
Eugene Fidell, who teaches military law at Yale Law School, said the Pentagon could scrap any charges involving illegal orders if they arose through the military justice system. He also said the ability to issue pardons could change the incentive for prosecution.
“ The next administration might find its hands tied in terms of prosecuting anybody for obeying such an order, because President Trump may pardon everybody in sight,” Fidell said.
Service members who object to war based on their beliefs can seek conscientious objector status and be released from deployment.
More than 100 people have contacted the Center on Conscience and War, a nonprofit that helps service members apply as conscientious objectors, since late February, Mike Prysner, the center’s director, said.
Asked whether any service members involved in the boat strikes had refused to follow an order or been reprimanded for doing so, U.S. Southern Command said it “does not comment on unconfirmed reports, speculation, or administrative matters.”
Commander who led boat strikes retired early
In parallel with legal questions, speculation has swirled around leadership changes during the early phase of the strikes. Adm. Alvin Holsey, who led U.S. Southern Command through the first few months of the boat strikes, left the high-level job after barely a year in December.
Holsey has not spoken publicly or given interviews since leaving, but some news outlets reported he had raised concerns about the strikes. Under Gen. Francis Donovan, Holsey’s successor, the boat strikes—and videos posted to U.S. Southern Command’s social media—continued.
The legal alarms also found their way into politics and law enforcement. Six Democratic lawmakers released a video on social media last year urging service members to disobey illegal orders. The FBI opened an investigation, and the Pentagon moved to punish one of them, retired Navy captain Sen. Mark Kelly. A federal appeals court blocked the charges against Kelly.
Anti-war veterans groups also staged public pressure outside U.S. Southern Command’s headquarters in Doral, just outside Miami, Florida. Billboards put up along highways leading to the headquarters showed pictures of boats hit by the strikes. and carried text including “Don’t let them make you break the law.”.
Second strike on survivors heightens ethical concerns
The ethical debate sharpened after news reports that the first-ever boat strike in September left survivors who were then killed in a second, “double-tap” strike about 40 minutes later.
The Pentagon has refused to publicly release footage of that second strike. Lawmakers who viewed it in a classified setting called it deeply disturbing. Rep. Jim Himes. the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. said after viewing it. “What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.” He added. “You have two individuals in clear distress – without any means of locomotion. with a destroyed vessel – who were killed by the United States.”.
International law prohibits killing adversaries who are wounded or have already surrendered. Even so, many experts say the strikes cannot be considered war crimes because the Trump administration’s claim that it is at war with drug cartels does not stand up to scrutiny.
Maurer, the retired lieutenant colonel, said he found it “highly improbable” that a future administration would prosecute service members involved. He pointed to the popularity of the military and said there is a lack of appetite in Washington to pursue what would resemble a “retribution campaign.”
“I don’t think criminal accountability is going to happen,” he said.
In court and at international institutions, families have tried to force the questions into formal record.
The mother and sister of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo. two Trinidadian men the families say were killed in an Oct. 14 boat strike, have sued the U.S. government for damages over the “wanton, willful, and outrageous killings,” according to a complaint filed in January. Relatives of Alejandro Carranza Medina. a Colombian man who was killed in a September strike. filed a formal complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in December seeking compensation.
Steven Lepper, a retired Air Force major general who organized a working group of former military lawyers after Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth fired top lawyers across the military’s services, said he believes illegal orders could become harder to challenge over time.
“We are desensitizing the military to the notion that the orders they’re being given may be unlawful,” Lepper said.
Taken together—official insistence on legality. legal hotlines describing fear and moral conflict. leadership changes. withheld footage. and lawsuits seeking damages—the boat strike program has become more than a headline. It is a legal and institutional stress test over what accountability looks like when the chain of command insists there is no wrongdoing. but more and more families and lawyers say the facts tell a different story.
U.S. boat strikes Southern Command Marco Rubio illegal orders military justice conscientious objector double-tap Caribbean strikes Eastern Pacific strikes lawsuits Chad Joseph Rishi Samaroo Alejandro Carranza Medina
So basically they’re saying the orders were illegal after the fact? Cool cool.
Why do they keep calling it “strikes” like that makes it better. If it happened in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific isn’t that like… everywhere? Also 200+ is insane.
I mean, if the troops were ordered, they probably didn’t have a choice right? But then it says they’re supposed to refuse illegal orders… like who decides what’s illegal in the moment? Sounds like legal experts arguing while the dead are still dead.
This is why nobody should trust classified briefings. They always say it’s “legal” and then surprise, court stuff. I saw something on TikTok that said it was actually a “mistake” not an order, but now it’s saying illegal orders so which is it? Either way seems like the government just gets away with everything.