White House border czar Tom Homan has defended a U.S. military strike that killed 11 alleged drug traffickers tied to the transnational gang Tren de Aragua as it was traveling from Venezuela, while some advocacy groups have accused the United States of using “disproportionate lethal force.”
“What can I tell you from 40 years of doing this job? President Trump made the right decision when he classified these cartels, these gangs as terrorist organizations,” Homan, who served as a senior official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an interview with CNN on Sunday.
“They’ve killed more Americans with their poison than every terrorist organization in the world have killed Americans.”
He also claims drug cartels have killed “more Americans than any war.”
“So, yes, it’s the right thing to designate them terrorists, and it’s the right thing to stop the poison from coming into this country,” Homan said. “So, I support President [Donald] Trump on this action.”
Homan accused the previous administration under President Joe Biden of allowing 250,000 pounds of fentanyl to make its way into the U.S. through what he described as an “open border.”
“Who knows how many lives were saved from that poison getting into the United States?” Homan asked. “President Trump is trying to save lives; a secure border does that.”
“Let’s stop it before it even gets to our border, and that’s going to save thousands of American lives,” Homan added. “I support the decision of President Trump. That’s my personal opinion.”
U.S. military forces struck the boat in the Caribbean on Sept. 2, which reportedly carried 11 Tren de Aragua members.
The Venezuelan criminal organization has been linked to various crimes throughout the U.S., including human trafficking, theft and the trafficking of narcotics. In February, President Donald Trump’s administration designated Tren de Aragua and other international cartels and criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations.
According to a Tuesday statement from President Donald Trump’s Truth Social, the U.S. believed that members of the criminal gang were transporting illegal narcotics. The president also wrote that the strike should serve as a warning to anyone thinking about bringing drugs into the U.S.
In a Thursday statement regarding the sinking of the boat, the U.S. Department of Defense claimed that “two Maduro regime military aircraft flew near a U.S. Navy vessel in international waters” in “a highly provocative move” that was “designed to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations.”
The Defense Department also urged “the cartel running Venezuela” to refrain from pursuing “any further effort to obstruct, deter or interfere with counter-narcotics and counter-terror operations carried out by the U.S. military.”
While Homan expressed support for the strike, the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, called for the Trump administration to “disclose all the relevant facts” about the incident.
“What we have seen so far suggests that the U.S. armed forces did something that it has never done, to our knowledge, in more than 35 years of military involvement in drug interdiction in the Caribbean Sea: an instant escalation to disproportionate lethal force against a civilian vessel without any apparent self-defense justification,” the group declared in a Thursday statement.
The WOLA also questioned whether U.S. military forces attempted other actions before using force, such as contacting the people on the boat or firing warning shots. WOLA asked that U.S. authorities determine if the U.S. military had to use lethal force in self-defense, demanding accountability if an investigation were to reveal an unlawful use of force.
Regarding the claim from Trump about the boat carrying illegal narcotics, WOLA argued that the president did not specify the amount of drugs.
“But proportionality in the use of force is a fundamental principle of international law,” the advocacy group stated. “Mere suspicion of carrying drugs, or merely being pursued by (much faster) naval vessels or other military assets in international waters, are not offenses that carry a death sentence, much less summary execution.”
In a Saturday X post, Vice President JD Vance shared his opinion about the strike, stating that “Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.”
The vice president’s remark drew criticism from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who questioned Vance.
“Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?” the Republican lawmaker wrote in a Saturday X post, referencing the 1960 novel by Harper Lee. “Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation?”
“What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial,” Paul added.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
