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Trump Condemned for 200+ Extrajudicial Killings After Yearlong Murder Spree at Sea
"This is a make-believe armed conflict, but these are very real killings," said one legal expert.
Sep 02, 2026
Wednesday marked one year since President Donald Trump began bombing boats allegedly smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean—a grim anniversary that sparked a fresh wave of condemnation from rights advocates across the United States and beyond.
"For a year now, the Trump administration has engaged in a terrifying, lawless killing campaign at sea and has yet to provide the public with anything beyond the most threadbare justifications," said Jeff Stein, staff attorney with ACLU's National Security Project, in a statement late Tuesday.
The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights are suing over the administration's refusal to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request for a legal opinion authored by the US Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) attempting to justify the strikes.
"These strikes have devastated countless families, terrified communities, and, by the administration's own admission, failed to achieve their purported goal of stopping drugs from entering into the United States," Stein said. "We urge leaders in both Congress and the executive branch to put an immediate end to these strikes before anyone else is killed."
Despite mounting outrage over the bombings, which have killed at least 227 people and, as Amnesty International USA's national director for government relations, Amanda Klasing, highlighted Monday, "are illegal under both international and US law," the Republican-controlled Congress has failed to pass any war powers resolutions intended to stop the campaign.
"The Trump administration has summarily killed more than 200 people over the course of the past year, bragging about these killings online and facing no accountability," Ida Sawyer, crisis, conflict, and arms director at Human Rights Watch, said Wednesday. "The victims and their loved ones deserve a full accounting of these operations, and justice for the grave harm they have suffered."
After a two-month pause in the bombings, the administration revived them last week, launching a pair of attacks that killed at least six people, according to social media posts and aerial footage from US Southern Command. The strikes followed SOUTHCOM's early August announcement of an expanded operation across Latin America called Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere.
As MS NOW noted Wednesday:
In September and October 2025, when the strikes began, US Southern Command, known as SOUTHCOM, linked three of the strikes to the Tren de Aragua and Ejército de Liberación Nacional criminal organizations. Most later strikes were described as targeting "a vessel operated by designated terrorist organizations."
But the military's most recent two announcements of strikes simply stated that "confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking."
Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal adviser who now advises the US Program at the International Crisis Group, told the outlet that "they are engaging in conduct that is widely regarded to be flagrantly illegal, criminal even, and have not offered anything approaching plausible legal rationale."
The OLC memo may be the administration's "permission slip," Finucane said, but it hasn't actually substantiated claims that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with cartels that traffic drugs.
"This war framing on the part of the administration is really bogus," he added. "This is a make-believe armed conflict, but these are very real killings."
I don’t think there’s really even a colorable argument that this isn’t mass murder.theintercept.com/2026/09/02/m...
[image or embed]
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes.bsky.social) September 2, 2026 at 9:00 AM
Several Democrats in Congress, from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) to Senate Minority Whip and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin (Ill.), renewed their criticism of the boat bombings on Wednesday.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said that "the most recent strike was four days ago. A year of killing, and this administration has never once come to Congress to justify any of it. This cannot become the way our country goes to war."
"The American people are already paying for one war they didn't want in the first place," he continued, nodding to the illegal six-month assault on Iran. "I fought in Iraq. I know what these wars cost, and I know who pays them. I will use every tool I have as a United States senator to stop this and to defend the Constitution."
House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) noted that "it remains unclear whether these operations have made any real difference in stopping illegal drugs from reaching the United States."
"This is especially true for fentanyl," he noted, which Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth "have repeatedly claimed is the reason for these extrajudicial killings even though we know that it is cocaine—not fentanyl—that is typically shipped via small boats from South America."
Smith also called out the Department of Defense for failing "to publicly provide the costs of these operations, both in terms of dollars and readiness," and declared that "never before in my over 20 years on this committee have I seen such a staggering lack of transparency on behalf of an administration and DOD to meaningfully inform Congress of the use of lethal military force."
However, with Republicans holding narrow majorities in Congress and mostly still refusing to truly challenge the administration on the boat strikes—and various other violent actions around the world—some campaigners are also stepping up pressure on other governments.
"The Trump administration has had complete impunity for this campaign of unlawful killings for a year, and has stated openly that it has no intention of stopping," said Sawyer. "Other countries should refrain from any cooperation on these strikes, and Congress should urgently work to rein in the deadly actions of an administration bent on violating international law."
Jamil Dakwar, director of ACLU's Human Rights Program, said that "the international community must do everything in its power to hold the Trump administration responsible for these extrajudicial killings that are blatant violations of international law."
"No other country should provide any assistance that could contribute to these unlawful US government killings," Dakwar added, calling for an "independent international investigation into this lawless campaign."
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Netanyahu Government 'Actively Enabling' Deadly Settler Rampages in West Bank: Report
"Settlers shoot, attack, and expel Palestinians from their land, and the state provides the weapons, the legal cover, and the budget to do it."
Aug 20, 2026
Intensifying violence by government-backed Israeli settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank is fueling the mass displacement and erasure of entire Palestinian communities, according to a report published Thursday by Human Rights Watch.
HRW pointed with alarm to United Nations data showing that the average number of settler attacks per day in the West Bank has risen to the highest level on record as the far-right Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, continues to expand settlements in open defiance of international law.
The leading human rights group's new report estimates that Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has "fully or partially displaced 107 communities," comprised of nearly 6,000 Palestinians, since January 2023. The escalating displacement in the West Bank comes amid Israel's ongoing genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip.
“The Israeli government and the settlers share the same goal of maximum land and minimum Palestinians, with the authorities not only failing to stop settler violence, but actively enabling it,” Sarah Sanbar, acting Israel and Palestine researcher at HRW, said in a statement. “Settlers shoot, attack, and expel Palestinians from their land, and the state provides the weapons, the legal cover, and the budget to do it."
HRW's report was released days after the Israeli government published a new tender for the construction of more than 1,200 housing units in the West Bank. The anti-occupation group Peace Now noted that the bidding period for companies to build the units closes a week before Israel's elections.
"Building in E1 will ruin the possibility of reaching an end to the conflict and a peace arrangement based on two states," said Peace Now. "The government is trying to sign contracts with contractors before the elections so that it will be much harder for the next government to cancel the construction.”
HRW warned that companies seeking a role in constructing the new housing units are "bidding on complicity in a war crime."
"The impunity Israeli authorities accord settlers stems directly from the free pass Israel’s allies and donors have granted it."
For its report on settler violence, HRW interviewed 20 witnesses and reviewed video footage of attacks, which have included physical assaults, sexual violence, property destruction, theft, and killings—often carried out alongside Israeli soldiers. HRW noted that Israel's National Security Ministry has "formed civilian 'rapid response squads' in settlements" and given them "special policing powers, uniforms, and weapons."
“I have known war in this region for all my life, but never like this,” said Um Muhammad Muammar, a 72-year-old resident of Qaryut whose two sons were killed by Israeli settlers. “My sons’ children are now fatherless; their wives are now widows. What more can we say?"
With the support of Israel's government, settlers have established 65 new outposts in the West Bank this year alone. "Israeli organizations Kerem Navot and PeaceNow reported in July that these outposts currently effectively control more than 1 million dunams (100,000 hectares) of land—approximately 18% of the West Bank—four times what they controlled before the current government took office," HRW observed.
"The impunity Israeli authorities accord settlers stems directly from the free pass Israel’s allies and donors have granted it,” said Sanbar. “Accountability starts with the settlers committing crimes but doesn’t end there. Israel and the governments that give it a blank check share responsibility and should be held to account.”
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'Assault on the Rule of Law': US Groups Sue Trump Administration Over ICC Sanctions
The head of one affiliated organization called Trump's sanctions "a slap in the face to victims and survivors of grave crimes everywhere who depend on the ICC as a court of last resort.”
Aug 11, 2026
A quartet of US human rights groups filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the Trump administration’s sanctions targeting members of the International Criminal Court for their roles in seeking to hold Israeli leaders accountable for alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), Human Rights Watch (HRW), and the Open Society Institute (OSI) filed suit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York challenging the Trump administration’s sanctions against ICC prosecutors and judges, a United Nations human rights expert, and three Palestinian human rights groups.
The groups argue that US President Donald Trump's February 2025 executive order that imposed sanctions on the ICC are a “blatantly illegal attack on international justice and should be struck down."
James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative, called the sanctions "a slap in the face to victims and survivors of grave crimes everywhere who depend on the ICC as a court of last resort.”
Trump's sanctions follow the ICC's November 2024 issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. The tribunal simultaneously issued warrants for the arrest of three Hamas leaders for the same categories of crimes allegedly committed on and after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. However, Israel extrajudicially assassinated all three of the men.
The groups' complaint argues that the Trump administration has effectively transformed human rights advocacy into a potential criminal offense. Organizations can face severe civil and criminal penalties for providing what the government may determine are “services” to sanctioned individuals or groups.
That threat, they contend, has already had tangible consequences. The plaintiffs say the sanctions have disrupted their ability to represent victims of war crimes, submit evidence and legal arguments to the ICC, and collaborate with sanctioned Palestinian organizations on research, litigation, advocacy, and humanitarian work.
Targeted groups and individuals have experienced "frozen or closed bank accounts, rejection of financial transactions, denial of access to digital services, and travel bans," CCR notes. "US organizations, including the plaintiffs, can face punishment of up to 20 years of imprisonment and exorbitant fines for providing services to sanctioned persons or entities."
CCR called the sanctions "one of many" actions taken by the Trump administration "against free speech, protest, and advocacy in support of the human rights of Palestinians."
“For many years, I have represented victims in pressing for justice for crimes committed by the powerful, and finally saw much-needed, even if overdue, investigations opened at the ICC," said CCR senior staff attorney Katherine Gallagher. "In response, the Trump administration took the extraordinary step to not only deny Palestinians and victims of US torture equal access to justice, but to criminalize and punish them, their lawyers and advocates, and their partners."
Israeli officials and their supporters argue that the ICC and the International Court of Justice—where Israel is facing a genocide case filed by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 nations—have unfairly singled out Israel. However, the ICC has launched 18 investigations involving conflicts in countries including Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, the Philippines, Sudan (Darfur), and Ukraine.
Trump’s order asserts that ICC efforts involving US or allied nationals constitute a threat to American national security. But the new complaint argues that there is no genuine “national emergency” that can lawfully justify invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act against the court’s routine judicial work.
"The US government’s efforts to dismantle the ICC and punish people seeking justice for grave human rights violations harm far more than the individuals and groups facing sanctions," AFSC general secretary Joyce Ajlouny said in a statement Tuesday. “It is an affront to all victims and survivors of war crimes and genocide."
Ajlouny asserted that the Trump administration "seeks to intimidate human rights defenders and deter people of conscience from advocating for the rights and dignity of others."
"We are joining this lawsuit because we refuse to stay silent when the pursuit of justice is criminalized," she added.
Tuesday's complaint is the latest in a string of lawsuits challenging Trump's sanctions.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, earlier this year sued Trump and three of his senior Cabinet officials over sanctions imposed on her and her family. Although a federal district judge temporarily blocked the move on First Amendment grounds, an appeals court quickly reinstated the sanctions via an administrative stay.
In April 2025, two human rights advocates sued over sanctions against then-ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, arguing that the restrictions violated their First Amendment rights. A federal judge subsequently found the advocates were likely to succeed on their constitutional claims and issued a preliminary injunction protecting their communications with the court.
In June, three sanctioned ICC judges—Judges Kimberly Prost of Canada, Solomy Bossa of Uganda, and Reine Alapini-Gansou of Benin—filed suit against the Trump administration, arguing that the president's order directly violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which prohibits the government from making arbitrary and capricious policy changes.
Last month, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide also sued Trump and senior administration officials over the ICC sanctions.
“The Trump administration is using the blunt instrument of economic sanctions not only to punish human rights defenders but to police the political expression of millions of Americans,” DAWN executive director Omar Shakir said at the time. “The government is violating the constitutional rights of American citizens in order to shield officials of a foreign government who have committed a genocide.”
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After Months of Denials, Pentagon Says US Killed and Wounded Hundreds of Civilians in 2025 Yemen Airstrikes
The US Department of Defense had initially denied that any civilians were killed in its operations in Yemen.
Aug 11, 2026
An internal review conducted by the US Department of Defense found that US airstrikes in Yemen last year killed and wounded hundreds of civilians.
As reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday, the Pentagon review estimated that US strikes killed more than 150 Yemeni civilians while wounding nearly 250 others.
The strikes were carried out as part of an operation authorized by President Donald Trump targeting Houthi rebels, who were suspected of launching attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea.
The body count from US strikes in Yemen could be even larger than the Pentagon's current estimates, which only cover three attacks that were determined to have "more likely than not" harmed civilians. An additional 15 incidents are still being reviewed by the DOD.
The deadliest operation carried out by US forces was a strike on Ras Issa Port in the city Hodeidah, which the DOD estimates killed 80 people and wounded 171 others.
As noted by NBC News, the DOD initially said the Yemen strikes did not cause any civilian deaths, and the Pentagon "has yet to publicly acknowledge the casualties or share a full account with Congress."
Stanford University historian Robert Crews remarked that the internal DOD report shows that there is "no end in sight for America’s brutal colonial wars" and "still no substantive domestic anti-colonial movement in the US."
Human rights groups have long been critical of US operations in Yemen, and Human Rights Watch last year described the attack on Ras Issa Port as "an apparent war crime."
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'Landmark Victory' for Human Rights as Lebanon Becomes First Arab Nation to Abolish Death Penalty
"In a country that has experienced profound loss and suffering, this decision represents a powerful commitment to the right to life," said the UN's human rights chief.
Aug 11, 2026
In a move cheered by human rights defenders around the world, Lebanon's Parliament on Tuesday abolished the death penalty for all crimes, making the country the first in the Arab world to do so and standing in stark contrast to neighboring and nearby nations.
Lebanon's abolition—announced on June 30 at the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris—was approved by parliamentary lawmakers and, once signed by President Joseph Aoun as expected, will make the country the 129th worldwide to abolish capital punishment.
Under amendments introduced by Independent MP Abdul Rahman Bizri, execution—formerly carried out by hanging or firing squad—will be replaced as the ultimate punishment by life imprisonment under hard labor for crimes committed after abolition. Those currently condemned to death will have their sentences commuted to hard labor for life.
“Lebanon is regaining its pioneering role in the region as a defender of human rights,” Lebanese Justice Minister Adel Nassar said, adding that his country “has chosen to combat murder rather than resort to capital punishment."
MP Georges Okais of the Christian, right-wing Lebanese Forces party, said that “Abolishing the death penalty is a historic achievement, and we have adopted international standards regarding human rights.”
Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc walked out in protest of abolition, which is also opposed by other lawmakers including Independent MP Jihad al-Samad, who called the move "contrary to Islamic law."
Opponents of abolition argue that it, plus a general amnesty draft law introduced in April, could result in leniency for perpetrators of bombings and other serious crimes.
However, Nassar insisted that abolition “does not mean leniency toward criminals.”
Lebanese law had designated execution as punishment for a wide range of crimes including—but not limited to—murder, aggravated rape, terrorism, treason, spying, military desertion, aggravated theft, and arson. While 84 people were sentenced to death, Lebanon has not executed anyone in 22 years.
“We can see the uncertainty that those who are condemned to death are living under," one psychologist working in Lebanese prisons told the French advocacy group Together Against the Death Penalty in a 2021 study. "We don’t apply the death penalty, but we don’t cancel it either."
"Are we going to wake them up one day and tell them that they will be executed?" the psychologist added, describing the process in Japan and Europe's last executioner, Belarus, without mentioning the countries. "It is the most horrible thing to live through. It leads to anxiety, depression, and stress that is sometimes uncontrollable. They are alive, but without living.”
Lebanon's imminent abolition stands in stark contrast with neighboring and regional countries. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen rank among the world's most prolific executioners, while Syria's recent history is marred by thousands of extrajudicial executions during the administration of President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and Israel recently legalized the hanging of "terrorists"—a law critics claim will only be applied to Palestinians.
Daniel Cullen, project manager at Oxford University's Death Penalty Research Unit, lauded Lebanon's achievement, which came at "a time of myriad domestic challenges."
"Since October 2023, Israeli forces have conducted intense bombardments in their campaign against the Hezbollah militant group, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths, including during periods of nominal ceasefire," Cullen wrote. "Together with the Israeli military occupation of large areas of the south of the country and issuing of evacuation orders, this has resulted in the displacement of around one million people."
"Even prior to this, the country had already experienced a stark economic collapse since 2019, with a near 40% reduction in GDP, in addition to recovering from the effects of the explosion at Beirut port in August 2020," he continued. "Against this background, Minister of Justice Adel Nassar specifically highlighted the importance of the abolition legislation as a demonstration of Lebanon’s ability to commit to international human rights standards."
"Lebanon’s commitment to achieving abolition during a time of national crisis demonstrates that this is entirely possible," Cullen added.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on social media: "I welcome the Lebanese Parliament's decision formally to abolish the death penalty, and call on others to follow its lead. In a country that has experienced profound loss and suffering, this decision represents a powerful commitment to the right to life."
European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas called Lebanon's abolition "a significant step forward for human rights in the country."
"As the first country in the region to abolish the death penalty, Lebanon is setting a powerful example for other countries in the Middle East and beyond, reinforcing the strong global trend towards abolition and the growing international support for ending the death penalty worldwide," she continued.
"The European Union calls on all countries that still apply the death penalty to abolish it and, pending abolition, to maintain or introduce a moratorium on executions as a first step," Kallas added, urging "those considering its reintroduction to refrain from such a regressive step."
The West African nation of Burkina Faso adopted a draft penal code last December that would restore the death penalty for crimes including treason, terrorism, and espionage. An effort to revive capital punishment in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan was blocked by its Constitutional Court. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeatedly said he is ready to reintroduce the death penalty during his 23 years in power, while populist Filipino Sen. Ronald dela Rosa—a former police chief closely associated with former President Rodrigo Duterte's mass-murderous drug crackdown—reintroduced death penalty legislation after his reelection last year.
Human Rights Watch Lebanon researcher Ramzi Kaiss hailed Lebanon's "final break from a cruel sentence that should never be imposed.”
“Capital punishment is unique in its cruelty and finality and is plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error,” Kaiss asserted.
Amnesty International called the move "a landmark victory."
“Lebanon’s decision to abolish the death penalty marks a major milestone and a victory for human rights in the country," said Heba Morayef, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director.
Morayef continued:
Justice must be rooted in human rights, not in an irreversible and cruel punishment. After more than two decades without executions, today’s step transforms a precarious hiatus in executions into lasting legal protection upholding the right to life and bringing Lebanon in line with the global trend towards abolition.
The passing of this law is testament to the decades of tireless advocacy by Lebanese human rights defenders and organizations, as well as the leadership of key officials who recognized the death penalty as a cruel and inhuman punishment, often imposed after unfair proceedings and the burden of which frequently falls on those at most disadvantage.
“To turn this law from paper to practice, Lebanese authorities must now ensure that all death sentences are commuted and ratify the key international treaty on abolition, while advancing broader reforms to strengthen a justice system based on dignity, fairness, and respect for human rights," Morayef added. "Authorities must accompany this law with broader legislative reform, including to ensure that any criminal justice punishments are consistent with human rights principles.”
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US-Ecuador Military Partnership Brings Torture, Deadly Drone Strikes, and Disappearances
“US-Ecuador cooperation on security has been too opaque and too dangerous for Ecuadorians," said a representative for Human Rights Watch.
Jul 21, 2026
Human rights advocates are urging Congress to investigate the deepening military relationship between the US and Ecuador, which they say has been marred by severe abuses against civilians, including torture, arbitrary detentions, unexplained drone strikes, and disappearances.
A report out Tuesday from Human Rights Watch documents how the Trump administration's cooperation with the right-wing government of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa in response to organized crime in the country has been carried out under a veil of secrecy that has left few safeguards in place to protect human rights.
Dozens of victims, witnesses, lawyers, and others were interviewed for the report, which provides details about four incidents in which ordinary people were subject to abuse allegedly by Ecuadorian forces trained and armed by the United States as part of what the governments have called "Operation Total Extermination."
In one case—which was reported on by Common Dreams after being documented by local outlets in early March—Ecuadorian soldiers partnered with the US and stormed into the rural town of San Martín along the Colombian border in search of facilities owned by an armed group known as the Border Commandos.
Soldiers detained four dairy farmers without evidence of a crime and interrogated them for hours while beating, kicking, and striking them with rifle butts. One of the men said he was taken to the main house on the farm and waterboarded. According to the men, the soldiers doused the house with gasoline and set the property on fire.
Soldiers fired their weapons at another group of villagers who'd come to ask about the workers, which caused them to flee.
The four men were later taken to an unidentified military facility, where they said they were doused with water and electrocuted. Two of the men said soldiers pointed guns at them and threatened to kill them and cut off their fingers unless they confessed where they were keeping drugs and arms.
The men were released hours later without charges, and prosecutors said the soldiers failed to provide sufficient evidence to charge them. Human Rights Watch found they had no criminal records.
Days later, the military returned and dropped munitions on the remnants of the burned property and two others that had been abandoned. Human Rights Watch did not find evidence that the destroyed properties had any connection to armed criminal groups.
In a hearing before the US Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Francis L. Donovan described the operation as a "success" and said Ecuadorian forces had acted "professionally." The Trump administration has said US forces were "present" for the operation, but has not disclosed their role in the bombing of the houses or the torture of the farmworkers.
The Human Rights Watch report also details three attacks on fishing boats between January and March off the coast of the Galápagos Islands, which are possessed by Ecuador.
On January 20, the Fiorella disappeared along with eight crew members who remain missing more than six months later. Two surviving crew members, who'd left the main vessel to set fishing lines, said they suddenly lost contact with the ship while they were waiting to be picked up. As they searched for the vessel, they saw a "column of smoke" off in the distance, but no sign of the Fiorella.
They added that in the days before the ship went missing, they had seen what they thought were surveillance drones flying overhead as well as a gray patrol vessel flying an American flag nearby.
The families of the eight missing sailors have been demanding answers about their whereabouts for months with little response from the Ecuadorian government. The United Nations has issued urgent actions on behalf of the fishermen, calling on Ecuador to immediately search for them.
"The families of the eight individuals whose whereabouts are unknown fear that this is a case of enforced disappearance at the hands of the United States," said Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International, on Monday. "The US and Ecuadorian authorities must confirm or deny whether state agents from either country were involved, take all necessary steps to ascertain the fate and whereabouts of the victims, and provide reliable evidence showing what happened to them."
In March, two other boats—La Negra Francisca Duarte II and Don Maca—were hit with drones off the Galápagos. In both cases, the shipwrecked men were picked up by a blue and white ship by armed personnel wearing American military attire.
The fishermen were hooded, tied up, and in some cases beaten before being left on a hot metal deck for several hours without food, water, or adequate medical care.
Members of both crews said they saw the alleged US personnel destroy their fishing boats. They were then handed off to Salvadoran authorities and later sent back to Ecuador. Several of the men sustained serious injuries from the drone attacks, including severe burns, hearing loss, vision loss, broken and dislocated bones, and wounds from drone propellers.
Ecuadorian authorities have not confirmed that the attacks took place. According to the captain of La Negra Francisca Duarte II, and later an Ecuadorian port captain, Ecuadorian Coast Guard officers had boarded their ship for a routine inspection and found no evidence of illicit activity, just eight hours before the vessel was struck. No such inspections were reported aboard Don Maca.
The attacks closely resemble the ongoing campaign of extrajudicial boat bombings carried out by the United States, known as "Operation Southern Spear," in which at least 221 people have been killed across more than 60 attacks.
Though 13 of the survivors said they were detained by what appeared to be US personnel, the Department of Defense and Coast Guard denied involvement in all three attacks off the Galápagos.
“US-Ecuador cooperation on security has been too opaque and too dangerous for Ecuadorians,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Before more harm is done, the US Congress should demand real answers and effective safeguards.”
“Joint security operations against organized crime," Goebertus added, "should not become a cover for abuses."
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'A Human Rights Disaster': Groups Demand Closure of Trump's Largest Immigrant Detention Center
"The US government should shut it down, conduct independent investigations into all abuses and deaths in custody, and put an end to mass deportations and mandatory immigration detention."
Jul 15, 2026
The ACLU and Human Rights Watch on Wednesday released a joint report documenting abusive treatment of immigrants at the largest immigration detention facility in the US.
The groups' report focuses on Camp East Montana, located on Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, which can hold up to 5,000 detainees.
In total, the groups interviewed 71 detainees at the facility, along with four family members of detainees, and five legal service providers.
According to the report, people detained at Camp East Montana have suffered from "conditions of confinement that amounted to enforced disappearance, cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment, excessive use of force including one extrajudicial killing, life-threatening medical neglect, barriers to legal representation, and coercive third-country removals."
Detainees said that the camp's unsanitary conditions—which the report says include "overcrowded housing areas, bathrooms covered in feces and urine, and living quarters flooded with dirty water and dust"—have led them to develop infections and other health complications for which they have been regularly refused treatment.
One woman who spoke with investigators said that she is now at risk of permanent blindness after guards and nurses denied her request for emergency medical care, the report notes.
A Honduran immigrant identified as "Ismael M," who was detained at the camp for over five months, told investigators that conditions there were so terrible that he often had suicidal thoughts.
"I’ve gone a month without seeing the sun," said Ismael. "I am forced to live in filth... I have been taken from my family, from my home, and I know that no matter how long they keep me here, they will end up deporting me. I'm so afraid I will get killed once I am sent back. That is why I left."
Detainees also described regular beatings by guards at the facility.
A Cuban detainee identified as "Ricardo H" told investigators that he was beaten by guards simply for demanding to be fed.
"I didn’t get breakfast that day," Ricardo explained. "Our lunch is usually distributed at noon. By 1:30 pm the guards had not handed our meals out. Our meals were ready, the guards placed the food cart in front of us and were refusing to serve it. I protested verbally, I told them I was hungry and that I was human. I needed food. They ignored me so I kicked the metal door out of desperation."
This led to several officers opening his cell and beating him, he said.
"A lieutenant grabbed me by the shirt and slammed me to the ground," he said. "Six officers restrained me with my face down. I still have severe pain in my ear and in my right collarbone. They also stomped on my neck."
A Venezuelan detainee identified as "Armando G" said that he was beaten by guards after he went on hunger strike to protest food that he said was "not nourishing and was making us sick."
"I was tackled to the ground by seven guards," said Armando. "One of them was choking me, another pulled my hair and slammed my head on the ground. They were dragging me on the ground like a rag doll."
Angélica César, Aryeh Neier Fellow at Human Rights Watch and the ACLU, said the groups' report shows the camp is "a human rights disaster."
"The US government should shut it down," said César, "conduct independent investigations into all abuses and deaths in custody, and put an end to mass deportations and mandatory immigration detention."
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Report Details 'Human Rights Crisis' Wrought by Trump ICE Surge in Minnesota
“The federal government sent hordes of masked, armed agents to grab people off the street, whisk them away in shackles, and abuse those who sought to bear witness,” Human Rights Watch said of the deadly blitz.
Jun 18, 2026
Human Rights Watch on Thursday published a scathing report detailing how President Donald Trump "caused a human rights crisis" in Minnesota by ordering the deadly federal invasion of the Twin Cities in service of the administration's mass deportation agenda.
HRW called Operation Metro Surge, launched by Trump last December, "an unprecedented deployment of thousands of federal immigration agents and officers to the state of Minnesota," including members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
"The Trump administration claimed that Operation Metro Surge was designed to keep Americans safe and often stated that it was targeting noncitizens with violent criminal histories," the report states. "But the operation itself caused significant harm, and nearly two out of three immigrants arrested by ICE during Operation Metro Surge had no prior US criminal history whatsoever."
At least three people have been killed in connection with the operation. ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renée Good, a 37-year-old US citizen, in Minneapolis on January 7. A week later, 36-year-old Nicaraguan detainee Victor Manuel Díaz, who was arrested during the operation, became the third person to die at the notorious East Montana concentration camp in Texas. On January 24, CBP officer Raymundo Gutierrez and Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa shot and killed nurse Alex Pretti, 37, also in Minneapolis.
"Federal agents shot a third Minneapolis resident and pulled guns on dozens more," the report continues. "Agents also violently smashed car windows without justification, physically threw people to the ground who were not resisting arrest, and deployed chemical irritants and flash-bang grenades on dozens of occasions, sometimes at close range and without warning, resulting in injuries, including to journalists."
Furthermore, federal agents "unlawfully arrested and detained hundreds; engaged in racial profiling, harassment, and surveillance; and terrorized Minnesotans, chilling their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, and impacting their rights to education and health, among others," HRW said, adding that "residents faced further abuses when they collectively acted to protest, prevent, and stop these violations of their rights."
The HRW report calls for an immediate end to abusive federal enforcement operations in Minnesota; independent investigations into alleged unlawful killings, racial profiling, arbitrary arrests, excessive force, and other rights violations; and full accountability for officials responsible.
“The federal government sent hordes of masked, armed agents to grab people off the street, whisk them away in shackles, and abuse those who sought to bear witness,” Reagan Williams, HRW's crisis and conflict researcher, said in a statement. “Minnesotans mobilized to protest, to document abuse, and to provide critical aid to one another. National-level action is needed to ensure accountability, end ongoing abuses, remedy the harm, and prevent another crisis of this scale.”
“Operation Metro Surge put the violent and abusive practices of these agencies on full display,” Williams added. “We have clear proof of how they operate when impunity prevails, and we need to urgently chart a new way forward through accountability and structural reforms that put an end to these abuses.”
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Human Rights Watch Calls Out 'Troubling Conditions' in Trump Health Aid Agreements With Africa
“After the sudden and devastating pullback from US assistance in 2025, governments are now being pressured to accept agreements with contingencies that jeopardize human rights."
Jun 08, 2026
The Trump administration is requiring African nations to agree to a series of "troubling conditions" to restore lifesaving health aid, according to a Human Rights Watch report on Monday.
The administration's abrupt shuttering of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) last year shut off billions of dollars and caused havoc across Africa's healthcare system, resulting in what public health models project could be hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.
But under what has been dubbed the “America First” Global Health Strategy, the administration has negotiated secretive agreements with dozens of these countries to restore some of the funding. Most of them have been kept under lock and key by the US.
Those that have been made public have come with terms that Human Rights Watch said "raise concerns that health aid is being inappropriately leveraged to extract terms beneficial to the US in negotiations around natural resources and access to sensitive health data from recipient countries."
In March, a draft memorandum of understanding with the government of Zambia was revealed to have conditioned $1 billion for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and other disease prevention for millions of people, on the country's acceptance of a separate bilateral treaty that would have given US companies greater access to the country's minerals.
A leaked State Department memo, prepared for Secretary Marco Rubio, put the exploitative terms plainly: “We will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.”
After the details of that agreement were met with backlash, the text of agreements with several other countries—Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Uganda—were suddenly removed from the State Department’s Freedom of Information Act Library.
A Human Rights Watch assessment of the agreements with those five countries—as well as agreements with Rwanda and Liberia that were leaked—revealed that in order to restore a portion of the more than $800 million collectively stripped from them by the US, they'd have to agree to several coercive measures that jeopardize the reproductive and privacy rights of their citizens.
“The agreements show the US intends to condition vital health assistance for millions of people on acquiescence to troubling conditions,” said Julia Bleckner, senior health researcher at Human Rights Watch. “After the sudden and devastating pullback from US assistance in 2025, governments are now being pressured to accept agreements with contingencies that jeopardize human rights.”
All seven of the agreements require the governments to provide the US with "broad access to data and information" to monitor compliance with the Helms Amendment, which forbids the use of US foreign assistance to pay for abortion care.
The agreements with Mozambique, Rwanda, and Liberia require them to provide “any data” requested by the US to ensure compliance with the amendment, while Uganda's permits the US to conduct unannounced spot checks of health facilities and clinics.
"By making a broad package of health aid contingent on broad and potentially invasive surveillance of Helms compliance, the agreement could encourage a more restrictive regulation of abortion than national law mandates and give rise to further violations of the right to healthcare,” says the report.
The agreements also give the US permission to directly audit clinics, laboratories, and health programs to ensure compliance with the conditions. Six of them require clinics to provide access to "any data" requested by the US at a sample of facilities it chooses.
Agreements with five countries also mandate that they share biological specimens taken from patients and associated information related to novel infectious diseases, which HRW described as part of an effort to undermine a global pathogen access and sharing system being created by the World Health Organization, from which Trump has removed the US.
HRW said in a news release:
The agreements raise serious concerns about use of people’s private health data, without clear limits, uniform safeguards, or meaningful protections for patient confidentiality, including in several countries with weak or absent domestic data protection laws. The agreements contain no prohibition on this data being shared with US pharmaceutical companies without patient consent.
“Governments negotiating health assistance agreements with the United States face difficult choices,” Bleckner said. “They should be wary of terms asking them to sign away their populations’ rights and push for the inclusion of civil society representatives and multilateral global health organizations like the Global Fund in deliberations.”
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ICE Sued Over 'Civil Rights Catastrophe' at West Texas Concentration Camp
“The conditions here in this ICE tent camp in a desert are inhumane and cruel," said one Cameroonian plaintiff in the suit. "No human being should ever have to go through this."
May 30, 2026
A group of legal advocacy groups on Friday sued US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies and officials over "inhumane" conditions at the country's largest concentration camp for immigrants detained during the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign.
The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Texas, Texas Civil Rights Project, Human Rights Watch, and the law firm Farella Braun + Martel LLP filed suit against ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, and associated officials, in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas in El Paso.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four people seeking to represent a class action for all others held at Camp East Montana, a 60-acre facility located in the Chihuahuan Desert on the grounds of Fort Bliss, an Army base and the site of one of the concentration camps where Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals were imprisoned during World War II. Approximately 2,500 immigrants are being detained there.
Citing “a Civil Rights catastrophe,” a group of legal and civil rights organizations in Texas sued the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Friday over conditions at Camp East Montana in El Paso, the country’s largest immigration detention facility.More: substack.com/@shero/note/...
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— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule.bsky.social) May 30, 2026 at 10:03 AM
The lawsuit documents accounts of what the ACLU called "horrific rights violations" at the facility, including:
- Severe medical neglect and disease outbreaks, including a months-long measles outbreak that infected at least 14 people;
- Violent uses of force by officers against detained immigrants and coercive threats of deportation;
- Excessive and arbitrary use of solitary confinement to punish people for requesting basic needs like medical care or hygiene;
- Inadequate and rancid food that have caused detained people to lose extreme amounts of weight;
- Exposure to dust storms through openings in tent walls that subjects people to respiratory disease; and
- Dangerous and unsanitary living conditions in the tent camp, among other rights violations.
“These conditions are longstanding, pervasive, and well-documented, and defendants’ continued inaction in the face of known risks shows their deliberate indifference—not mere negligence—to detainees’ constitutional rights,” the lawsuit states.
At least three detainees have died at Camp East Montana, including Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban who, according to witnesses, died after being handcuffed and placed in a chokehold by guards. The El Paso County Medical Examiner's Office ruled Lunas Campos' death a homicide by asphyxia.
Detained immigrants have reported beatings and sexual abuse, medical neglect, hunger and insufficient food, and denial of access to attorneys at the facility.
“The conditions here in this ICE tent camp in a desert are inhumane and cruel. No human being should ever have to go through this," case plaintiff Gerald Akari Angye said in a statement Friday.
I have already experienced torture in my home country of Cameroon and I never thought I would experience such severely violent treatment by guards here in the United States of America," he continued. "I have been beaten here and even today, I still have a brace on my hands and wrist. I am in pain and I am scared to be here."
"No one deserves such cruel treatment," Akari Angye added. "We are all humans and deserve to be treated like it.”
Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, called Camp East Montana "nothing short of a civil rights catastrophe."
“Since the day it opened, the facility has repeatedly made headlines for horrific rights violations and even the deaths of three detained people, yet ICE has still evaded accountability for its conduct," Virgien added. "We’re suing to ensure that no other human being has to endure the inhumane treatment that the Trump administration has inflicted on our clients.”
Another case plaintiff, named in the suit as Navdeep, said, "It feels like we are just political pawns taken from our jobs and families and forced into a temporary tent that is not designed for human life."
“We could die here, and it feels like no one here would care," they continued. "With everything happening behind closed doors, I worry the people running this place might cover up the truth about a death or the other injustices that happen here."
"It’s important for people to know the truth of what is happening here," Navdeep added. "Being part of this lawsuit is important to me because many people are vulnerable or they become weak because of the conditions here. Even though we come from many different places, we are all human. I want to be a voice for everyone here.”
After receiving "numerous credible reports of torture, killing, and inhumane treatment" of detainees, 35 Democratic Texas state lawmakers earlier this year demand a probe into alleged abuses at Camp East Montana.
Democratic members of US Congress have also sounded the alarm over conditions at Camp East Montana. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) has also called out profiteering by the private contractors running the camp.
Amentum Services Inc. took over operations from Acquisition Logistics LLC earlier this year. The latter was never registered to operate in Texas and the former "has a history of health, safety, and other violations of federal law," according to the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen.
The Trump administration is currently moving forward with a plan to convert industrial warehouses into more ICE concentration camps. The agency has already purchased or contracted for at least 11 warehouses in eight states as part of the $38 billion plan.
While some critics take exception to the concentration camp description, the ICE facilities fit the dictionary definition of the term. The US has a long history of operating concentration camps, with imprisoned peoples ranging from Indigenous tribes during the Trail of Tears and Long Walk to escaped and freed slaves—officially called "contraband" in the Civil War—to Filipinos, Okinawans, and Vietnamese during three different 20th century wars, to Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals during World War II.
“Germany’s concentration camps didn’t start as instruments of mass murder, and neither have ours; both started as facilities for people the government’s leader said were a problem," talk show host and author Thom Hartmann wrote earlier this year for Common Dreams. "And that’s exactly what ICE is building now. History isn’t whispering its warning: It’s shouting.”
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