By Felicia J. Persaud

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Sat. Feb. 7, 2026: In ‘Sinners,’ director Ryan Coogler uses vampirism as more than a horror spectacle. The film’s vampire mythology operates as a layered metaphor – one that probes white supremacy, cultural extraction and the seductive dangers of assimilation, particularly for those navigating proximity to power, while remaining marked as “other.”

Musician Nicki Minaj (L) joins U.S. President Donald Trump on stage as he delivers remarks during the Treasury Department’s Trump Accounts Summit at Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on January 28, 2026 in Washington, DC. “Trump Accounts” are a portion of recently passed tax and spending legislation where the federal government will deposit $1,000 into investment accounts for every child born between 2025 and 2028 once parents sign their children up while filing their income taxes.  (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

At the center of this metaphor is Mary, a white-passing woman in the Jim Crow South who becomes a vampire. Her transformation reflects a grim bargain: escape the immediate violence inflicted on Black women by aligning with the very system that feeds on the Black community. Passing offers protection, but only at the cost of becoming complicit – no longer prey, but predator.

That metaphor came rushing back to me last week while watching Trinidad and Tobago-born immigrant and rapper, Nicki Minaj, publicly embrace MAGA politics, declaring herself the president’s “number one fan.” The image was jarring to me as a Caribbean immigrant – not simply because of partisan alignment, but because it came days after Alex Pretti was killed in a snowy Minneapolis street and weeks after Renee Good was shot dead by federal immigration agents protesting immigrant raids.

Minaj was once a self-described undocumented immigrant. In a widely shared 2018 post, she condemned family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border, writing that she herself entered the United States without legal status as a child.

“I can’t imagine the horror of being in a strange place & having my parents stripped away from me at the age of 5,” she wrote at the time, pleading for compassion toward detained children during the first Trump administration.

That voice now feels distant.

What happened between 2018 and 2026? How does someone move from public empathy for immigrant children to smiling alongside a political movement that is actively dismantling constitutional protections, terrorizing immigrant communities, and normalizing state violence?

The answer may lie in power – and who it ultimately serves.

Under the Trump administration, wealth has become a fast track to immunity. The so-called “Trump Gold Card” offers U.S. residency to foreign nationals willing to pay a $15,000 DHS processing fee and contribute $1 million. A forthcoming Platinum version reportedly raises that price to $5 million, granting extended U.S. stays without taxation on foreign income. The message is blunt: borders harden for the vulnerable, but dissolve for the wealthy.

Minaj, now a green card holder, does not appear to need such a program but who knows?. Her enthusiastic claim that she was given a Trump gold card and is now applying for US citizenship aligns with a movement built on exclusion. It raises a deeper question: when proximity to power offers safety, does solidarity become optional?

Reports that Minaj has pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Trump-backed tax-advantaged investment accounts for newborns – framed as generosity toward her fans – only complicate the picture. Charity does not cancel complicity. Philanthropy does not absolve political harm.

In ‘Sinners,’ vampirism represents the loss of cultural memory and moral grounding. Survival is promised, but at the price of self-erasure. The vampire no longer remembers who they were – or who they once stood with.

Minaj’s political transformation mirrors that arc. An immigrant woman, born in the Caribbean region, who once spoke as a child of migration, now appears willing to overlook policies designed to erase Black history, criminalize black, brown, and white bodies, and redefine belonging through wealth.

That is the danger Coogler warns us about. Not monsters in the shadows, but assimilation so complete, it forgets its origins – and feeds on those left behind.

In ‘Sinners,’ the vampire’s greatest weapon is not violence, but amnesia. It forgets where it came from, who it once stood beside, and who is still being hunted. That kind of forgetting may offer comfort and protection, but history shows it is never consequence-free.

The warning for Nicki Minaj – and for those in Black and Brown communities trading solidarity for status – is simple: wealth may buy access, and loyalty may buy time, but neither buys exemption. Systems built on exclusion eventually consume everyone they decide does not belong.

Felicia J. Persaud is the founder and publisher of  NewsAmericasNow.com, the only daily syndicated newswire and digital platform dedicated exclusively to Caribbean Diaspora and Black immigrant news across the Americas.

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By Nyan Reynolds

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. Feb. 5, 2026: There are writers who explain the world, and then there are writers who teach you how to survive inside it. For me, James Baldwin has always been the latter. His words did not merely interpret history. They warned us. They prepared us. They loved us fiercely enough to tell the truth.

A Love Letter to Black Women and Children – Black History Month 2026

Baldwin gave language to a generation that had been told its suffering was imaginary and its dignity negotiable. Because of voices like his, I can walk my communities and drink water where fountains once had barriers. I can enter stores without being forced to wait in lines of humiliation. I can sit in restaurants and be served as a human being. These are not small victories. They are moral inheritances.

Yet, there is a part of Baldwin’s story that still demands to be told, especially during Black History Month in 2026. Baldwin did not only write about laws and protests. He wrote about Black children. About their right to grow up without being spiritually crushed by a society that refuses to see them as innocent. One of his most profound offerings was his 1962 essay, My Dungeon Shook, a letter to his nephew written on the hundredth anniversary of emancipation.

In that letter, Baldwin confessed: “I have drafted this letter five times and torn it up five times.” He could not escape the face of his nephew, which was also the face of his brother, and the face of his father, and the face of every Black boy shaped by fear before he ever learned joy. Baldwin described the boy as tough, dark, vulnerable, and moody, sounding truculent so that no one would think he was soft. Baldwin knew the armor Black boys are forced to wear. He knew how early it was given to them.

He also knew what happens when society convinces a man that he is what it says he is. Baldwin wrote of his own father, defeated long before death, because at the bottom of his heart he believed the lie that certain people told about him. That belief made him bitter. Holy in pain. Rigid in sorrow.

Baldwin’s letter was never meant to be sealed in history. It was meant to be read again and again by Black mothers and Black children whenever the world tried to tell them who they were.

And here we are, in 2026, still needing that letter.

The names alone testify that Baldwin’s warning was not outdated. Amadou Diallo. Sean Bell. Tamir Rice. Eric Garner. Michael Brown. Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. Elijah McClain. These are not simply victims of incidents. They are chapters in an unfinished American sentence. They are reminders that the description Baldwin gave, tough, dark, vulnerable, moody, still clings to Black bodies in the eyes of systems built on fear.

Many of these men and women died in the arms of institutions that saw them not as children, not as sons or daughters, but as threats. Just as Baldwin feared, so many families did not get to see their loved ones grow old. Their lives were interrupted by the same lie Baldwin named more than sixty years ago.

What Do We Have In 2026?

We have a moral struggle that never concluded. We have progress that looks impressive from a distance but fragile up close. We have Black people in leadership, Black people with wealth, Black people with education. These are real achievements. But opportunity does not equal safety. Opportunity does not equal justice. Opportunity does not erase fear.

Progress is not a cover for what happens beneath the surface.

This is where this love letter must be written, not to deny growth, but to refuse the lie that growth means arrival. This letter is to Black women and Black children, because Baldwin always understood that the burden of history sits heavily on their bodies first.

To the Black woman, mother, aunt, grandmother, sister, who raises a child in a world that promises equality but practices suspicion, this letter says: your love is revolutionary. Your fear is not weakness. It is awareness shaped by history. You carry knowledge that textbooks avoid and politicians dilute. You know that a glittering society can still cast deadly shadows.

It is horrifying to admit that after all the sacrifices made, after marches, after laws, after speeches, there is still a chance that your son may not reach adulthood, that your daughter may be seen as a threat rather than a child. The structures that once blocked Baldwin, Medgar Evers, and so many others have not vanished. They have learned to wear professional language and neutral uniforms.

Some will ask, what is it that Black people are doing to move forward? They say opportunities exist now. They say the doors are open. But opening doors does not mean the house is safe. A seat at the table does not mean the knives are gone. Opportunity without justice is simply another test of endurance.

This is why Baldwin still speaks. His letter screams into Black History Month because it reminds us that history is not a museum. It is a mirror.

We must be honest with our children about the world they inherit. Not to frighten them, but to fortify them. Baldwin did not write to make his nephew despair. He wrote to make himself awake. He told him that the world would try to define him, but that he must not accept the definition. That love was the key, but not sentimental love. A disciplined love. A love that tells the truth.

This love letter in 2026 says to Black women: hug your children fiercely but also teach them what the world hides beneath its shine. Teach them that their lives matter even when the news does not show it. Teach them that fear is learned, but dignity is chosen. Teach them that their ancestors survived systems that were far more explicit in their cruelty, and that survival itself is an inheritance.

It is not enough to celebrate Black excellence while ignoring Black grief. It is not enough to parade progress while counting funerals. Black History Month cannot only be a gallery of triumph. It must also be a classroom of warning.

Elijah McClain was on his way home listening to music. Tamir Rice was playing. Eric Garner said he could not breathe. George Floyd called for his mother. These moments reveal not only tragedy but vulnerability. They reveal how quickly innocence is erased when Black skin enters the equation. Baldwin warned that Black children would be forced to grow up too soon. He warned that they would be asked to be strong before being allowed to be young.

This letter says: let us not pretend the danger is gone. Let us not confuse representation with redemption. Let us not treat history as something that happened instead of something that continues.

To Black children, this letter says: you are not what fear says you are. You are not the story written about you by strangers. You are the story written by your ancestors who endured chains and still sang. You are the story written by mothers who held babies while laws denied their humanity. You are the story Baldwin tried to protect when he wrote to his nephew.

Your softness is not weakness; your joy is not naïveté. Your vulnerability is not a liability. It is proof that the world has not yet broken you.

But you must know the truth. You must learn the shadows as well as the light. Not because you are doomed, but because you are deserving of clarity. Baldwin believed that the greatest crime was not hatred alone, but the lie; the lie that tells a child they are inferior; the lie that tells a nation it is innocent.

This is why this love letter must be scathing and tender at once. It must accuse injustice while embracing hope. It must say plainly that the journey continues and that pretending otherwise is itself a betrayal of those who died believing in something better.

Black History Month in 2026 is not just a commemoration. It is a conversation with Baldwin’s ghost. It is a question he asked long ago: can America afford to be honest with itself? Can it look at the names on death certificates and admit that emancipation did not end the struggle for dignity?

For the Black woman who wakes up every day and sends her child into a world she cannot fully protect them from, this letter says: you are not alone in your fear. History stands with you. Baldwin stands with you. Every ancestor who prayed in silence stands with you.

Read Baldwin

Read Baldwin to your children. Not because he is famous, but because he is faithful to the truth. Remind them that they are loved deeply and warned honestly. Remind them that their existence is not an apology. Remind them that their lives are not experiments in tolerance.

Progress is real, but it is not complete. Representation is visible, but it is not immunity. Justice is spoken of, but it is not guaranteed.

This is the moral responsibility Baldwin gave us. To refuse despair. To refuse denial; to refuse the lie that time alone heals injustice. Healing requires courage. It requires memory. It requires love strong enough to confront cruelty without becoming it.

So, this love letter to Black women and children in Black History Month 2026 says simply this: the journey continues, but so does your worth. Hug your children and teach them the truth. Teach them that the past speaks not to chain them, but to guide them. Teach them that Baldwin’s letter was not an ending, but a beginning.

And when the world feels glittering and safe, remind them of the shadows, not to frighten them, but to sharpen their vision. Because survival is not the final goal. Freedom of spirit is.

Baldwin once wrote that love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. This letter takes off the mask of comfort and reveals the work that remains. It tells Black women and children that their lives are sacred in a society that still struggles to admit it.

Black History Month 2026

Black History Month is not only about what we were. It is about what we refuse to become. It is about choosing dignity over denial, memory over myth, and love over fear.

And so, this letter ends where Baldwin began, with a child’s face. A face that carries the past and the future at once. A face that must be protected not only by laws, but by truth. A face that deserves to grow old in a country brave enough to see it fully.

That is the unfinished promise. That is the work; that is the love.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Nyan Reynolds is a U.S. Army veteran and published author whose novels and cultural works draw from his Jamaican heritage, military service, and life experiences. His writing blends storytelling, resilience, and heritage to inspire readers.  

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News Americas, FORT LAUDERDALE, FL, Weds. Feb. 4, 2026: Haitians in Miami’s Little Haiti gathered in prayer Tuesday night, giving thanks after a federal judge blocked the termination of Temporary Protected Status, (TPS),for Haitians – a move hailed by Haitian American leaders as a critical lifeline for immigrant families.

Haitian American Congresswoman, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, praised the ruling, which halts the potential removal of more than 350,000 Haitians living and working in the United States.

“This is a major win for South Florida and for our strong immigrant communities,” Cherfilus-McCormick said in a statement. “This decision confirms what we all know to be true: our nation cannot be at its greatest without Haitian immigrants, who contribute close to $3.4 billion annually to our economy.”

People attend a candlelight vigil for Haitians living in the US under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) immigration program in Miami, Florida on February 3, 2026. Late on February 2, federal judge Ana C. Reyes of the Federal District Court in Washington, blocked the Trump administration from ending TPS for an estimated 350,000 Haitian immigrants. The status, which offers protection from deportation and work authorization, was set to expire on Feb. 3. (Photo by Giorgio Viera / AFP via Getty Images)

At the prayer vigil held at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, a small but emotional crowd lit candles and prayed for stability, protection, and the opportunity to continue building their lives in the United States.

The ruling allows more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants nationwide — including an estimated 158,000 in Florida — to remain in the country and continue working, at least temporarily. For many families, the decision brought a measure of relief, tempered by ongoing uncertainty about the future.

“The past five years, what Haiti’s been dealing with — we are not ready,” said Fabiola Barthelemy, a Haitian American who has lived in the U.S. for decades, speaking to CBS News. “The crisis is real. Children are being raped and gangs are still active. Sending people back is like a death sentence to me.”

Although Barthelemy is a U.S. citizen, many members of her family are not. Her daughter, Elizabeth Barthelemy, said the prospect of her relatives being forced to return to Haiti is devastating.

“It would make me feel mad, frustrated, sad and depressed,” she told CBS Miami. “My cousins are like my family. I would go with them.”

Community leaders and elected officials echoed those concerns, stressing that TPS recipients are law-abiding, contributing members of society — not criminals.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s move to end TPS for Haitians nationwide.

Local officials say the decision offers critical breathing room but does not guarantee a permanent solution.

As of Tuesday night, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website had not yet been updated to reflect the ruling and continued to list TPS protections for Haitians as ending on Feb. 3rd.

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By Ron Cheong

News Americas, Toronto, Canada, Thurs. Jan. 29, 2026: Donald Trump’s political approach has not been defined by a consistent commitment to long-term institutional stewardship – either domestically or internationally. To assume otherwise risks attributing to him a degree of altruism or strategic coherence that his record does not clearly support.

Mark Carney’s responsibility, by contrast, is narrowly defined: to safeguard Canada’s interests. That is what he has sought to do. Faced with erratic threats, the use of tariffs as leverage, and diminishing regard for rules-based cooperation, Canada’s choices have narrowed: acquiesce and absorb repeated shocks, or chart a more deliberate course grounded in clarity, discipline, and resolve.

It would be reassuring to believe that these challenges will fade with a change in U.S. leadership. But Trump is better understood not as an aberration, but as a prominent manifestation of a broader American political current – one increasingly skeptical of alliances, resistant to external constraints, and prepared to deploy economic power coercively. That current is unlikely to vanish overnight. Expectations of a simple return to earlier norms therefore risk confusing nostalgia with strategy.

Binding Agreements Strained — Treaties Treated as Contingent

Recent years have underscored a difficult reality for Canada:

Agreements, even when formally ratified, can be reinterpreted or disregarded.

Treaty commitments may be suspended through executive action.

Stability can erode not because rules cease to exist, but because one party signals that compliance is optional.

The central question is no longer whether the United States will formally withdraw from the USMCA, but whether its conduct increasingly resembles partial disengagement – through tariffs, contested justifications, and the politicization of border administration.

In practice, many Canadian businesses and policymakers already operate on that assumption.

Tariffs are no longer confined to conventional trade disputes; they have become instruments of political signaling. The long-standing belief that economic interdependence would reliably constrain political behavior appears less certain. In some cases, political imperatives now drive economic decisions.

A Watershed Moment in the Global Order

For decades, the United States benefited from an international system reinforced by reserve-currency status, deep capital markets, and broad geopolitical trust. There are growing indications that aspects of that system are being reassessed.

What is unfolding is not collapse, but adjustment. Some countries have chosen to diversify reserve holdings, including through increased domestic custody of gold. Gold prices reflect this broader uncertainty. Holdings of U.S. Treasuries are being reduced incrementally – not in panic, but as part of longer-term risk management. Few actors seek a disorderly outcome that would undermine assets they still hold.

This is how systemic change often appears: gradual rather than dramatic, cautious rather than declarative.

The Limits of Negotiating with a Bully

There has been a persistent belief that Trump could be effectively constrained through negotiation alone. Experience has called that assumption into question.

When tariff threats were linked to geopolitical demand such as pressure surrounding Greenland several countries declined to comply, responding instead through coordinated diplomatic resistance. Figures such as Carney emphasized collective resolve rather than bilateral concession.

Subsequent U.S. messaging shifted, with references to prospective frameworks lacking clear institutional endorsement. Observers differed on interpretation, but the episode reinforced a recurring pattern: pressure applied, resistance encountered, narrative adjusted.

History suggests that coercive bargaining rarely stabilizes relationships. Concessions offered under pressure often invite further demands. Durable outcomes, by contrast, tend to emerge from clear limits combined with consistent engagement.

History’s Warning

Historical analogy should be used with care, but certain lessons recur.

In 1938, Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich asserting that concessions would secure peace. Within months, further territorial expansion followed, culminating in a broader European war.

Appeasement, in retrospect, did not preserve stability.
It weakened deterrence.

Contemporary disputes – whether involving Panama, Colombia, Greenland, Venezuela, Iran, or even close partners such as Canada, differ profoundly in context and scale. Yet the underlying logic of pressure and response remains familiar.

Canada as a Trading Nation

Canada is fundamentally a trading nation. Beyond exporting goods, it depends on durable commercial relationships and deeply integrated supply chains.

For many years, Canadians assumed that the U.S. relationship, unequal but fundamentally pragmatic, rested on shared economic self-interest. Highly integrated economies, it was believed, would avoid actions that imposed disproportionate harm on themselves.

That assumption now warrants re-examination.

The Risks of Escalatory Economic Threats

Threats of sweeping tariffs, such as a hypothetical across-the-board increase tied to Canada’s pursuit of diversified trade, would carry serious risks for both economies.

Such measures could disrupt housing, automotive manufacturing, energy markets, and cross-border supply chains with unusual speed and severity.

Canada is not a great power. But it is a capable one: resource-rich, institutionally stable, and deeply embedded in global markets. Treating it as economically subordinate would not only strain bilateral relations; it would undermine shared economic resilience.

What Middle Powers Must Do

So what course remains for Canada?

The one middle powers have historically taken under pressure.

Stay calm.
Stay strategic.
Stay firm.

Avoid panic.
Avoid theatrics.
Avoid reflexive concession.

There is a difference between compromise and capitulation. Between diplomacy and dependency. Between reducing risk and institutionalizing vulnerability.

Geography is immutable. The United States will remain Canada’s closest neighbor and largest trading partner. Abrupt disengagement is neither realistic nor desirable.

But neither can Canada accept a condition of recurring economic coercion – where each political cycle introduces renewed uncertainty.

That is not partnership.
It is not stability.
It is not free trade.

Canada cannot control the direction of U.S. domestic politics. But it can reduce its exposure to their volatility. Success will not be measured in rhetoric or applause, but in whether Canada becomes, over time, more resilient – harder to pressure, harder to isolate, harder to threaten economically. That is stability.
Not submission.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ron Cheong, born in Guyana, is a community activist and dedicated volunteer with an extensive international background in banking. Now residing in Toronto, Canada, he is a fellow of the Institute of Canadian Bankers and holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Toronto. His comments are his own and do not reflect those of News Americas or its parent company, ICN.

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News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Jan. 28, 2026: The families of two Trinidad and Tobago nationals killed last year during a U.S. military strike in Caribbean waters have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the United States government, arguing the Caribbean killings were unlawful because no armed conflict existed.

MV-22 Osprey aircraft are parked on the tarmac at Mercedita Airport in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on January 15, 2026. (Photo by Ricardo ARDUENGO / AFP via Getty Images)

The suit, filed yesterday in federal court in Massachusetts, is being brought by the mother of Chad Joseph, 26, and the sister of Rishi Samaroo, 41, who were among six people killed on October 14, 2025, when a U.S. missile struck a boat Washington alleged was transporting drugs.

The case is being pursued under the Death on the High Seas Act, which allows civil claims for wrongful deaths occurring in international waters, and the Alien Tort Statute, which permits foreign nationals to seek redress in U.S. courts for violations of international law. At least 125 people have been killed in these strikes since September 2025.

Legal advocates describe the lawsuit as the first of its kind brought against the Trump administration over its expanded use of military force in anti-narcotics operations in the Caribbean. At the time of the strike, U.S. officials said the operation targeted “narco-terrorists” linked to drug trafficking networks allegedly operating between Venezuela and the United States. However, the lawsuit contends that no evidence has been publicly produced to support claims that the victims were affiliated with drug cartels or terrorist organizations.

Instead, the plaintiffs argue that Joseph and Samaroo were civilians who were traveling by boat after engaging in fishing and agricultural work in Venezuela.

“There was no armed conflict,” the lawsuit states. “As such, the laws of war do not apply. These were wrongful deaths and extrajudicial killings carried out without legal justification.”

The Trump administration has previously told members of Congress that the United States is engaged in a non-international armed conflict with transnational drug cartels, using that position to justify the use of lethal military force. The lawsuit directly challenges that claim, asserting that treating alleged drug trafficking as a battlefield conflict erodes international law and due process protections.

The families are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights, (CCR). They are seeking punitive damages, to be determined at trial.

“These were lawless killings in cold blood,” said CCR Legal Director Baher Azmy. “The United States cannot declare a war where none exists and then execute people without trial.”

“The Trump administration’s boat strikes are the heinous acts of people who claim they can abuse their power with impunity around the world,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior counsel at the ACLU. “In seeking justice for the senseless killing of their loved ones, our clients are bravely demanding accountability for their devastating losses and standing up against the administration’s assault on the rule of law.”

In a statement, Samaroo’s sister said her brother had served time for a past crime and was attempting to rebuild his life.

“Rishi used to call our family almost every day, and then one day he disappeared, and we never heard from him again,” said Sallycar Korasingh, Rishi Samaroo’s sister. “Rishi was a hardworking man who paid his debt to society and was just trying to get back on his feet again and to make a decent living in Venezuela to help provide for his family. If the U.S. government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him. They must be held accountable.”

“Chad was a loving and caring son who was always there for me, for his wife and children, and for our whole family. I miss him terribly. We all do,” said Joseph’s mother, Lenore Burnley. “We know this lawsuit won’t bring Chad back to us, but we’re trusting God to carry us through this, and we hope that speaking out will help get us some truth and closure.”

Prior to his murder, Joseph lived with his wife and their three children in Las Cuevas, Trinidad. To support his family, he often traveled to Venezuela to fish and for farmwork. On October 12, he called his wife to let her know that he had found a boat ride home from Venezuela and would see her in a couple of days. On October 14, his wife and Ms. Burnley saw social media reports of a boat strike; fearing that the boat was his, they repeatedly called him, but got no reply. His family has not heard from him since.

Samaroo was born in El Soccorro, Trinidad, where his elderly father, eight younger siblings, and two of his three sons still reside. His elderly mother lives nearby in San Juan. In 2024, he was released early on parole after serving a 15-year sentence for his participation in a homicide. Following his release, Mr. Samaroo moved to Las Cuevas, where he fished and worked in construction to support himself and his family. In August 2025, he let his family know that he was working on a farm in Venezuela, taking care of goats and cows and making cheese. He would call his family almost every day when he was in Venezuela, and in an Oct. 12 call with Ms. Korasingh, he told her he was returning home to Trinidad and would see her in a few days because their mother had fallen ill, and he wanted to help take care of her. That was the last time Ms. Korasingh or anyone else in the family heard from him.

The lawsuit also comes amid growing scrutiny of U.S. military strikes in Caribbean and eastern Pacific waters, which human rights groups say have resulted in more than 100 deaths since late 2025.

“Using military force to kill Chad and Rishi violates the most elementary principles of international law,” said Jonathan Hafetz, a Professor at Seton Hall Law School. “People may not simply be gunned down by the government, and the Trump administration’s claims to the contrary risk making America a pariah state.”

Trinidad and Tobago’s government has previously expressed support for aggressive anti-drug operations, though questions remain about the legality and oversight of foreign military actions in the region.

President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have publicly boasted about and published videos of the strikes – including the strike that killed Mr. Joseph and Mr. Samaroo. However, the strikes’ victims have remained largely anonymous, seen only as specks on a screen. The Trinidadian Foreign Minister Sean Sobers told a local news outlet after the strike that “the government has no information linking Joseph or Samaroo to illegal activities.”

The U.S. State Department and Department of Defense have not yet publicly responded to the lawsuit.