The Department of Defense did not have a plan for dealing with survivors of the launch of a bombing campaign against boats in Central American waters.
New York Times reports that after a mid-October strike in the Caribbean left two survivors in U.S. military custody, Pentagon lawyers asked their legal counterparts at the State Department whether the two could be sent to the notorious El Salvador Terrorist Detention Center, where the Trump administration has already sent numerous immigrants on shaky legal grounds.
Alarmed State Department lawyers quickly rejected the idea, and the two survivors were sent back to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia. Later, on October 29, the Pentagon spoke with diplomats in the region regarding survivors of another strike and decided that all those rescued should be sent back to their home countries or to the Third District, but definitely not to the United States.
Why? The Department of Defense wanted to avoid survivors being caught up in the U.S. legal system, since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other U.S. officials would have to present evidence in court to justify the bombings. The Pentagon has already admitted that it does not know who is on the suspected drug ships. they are bombingtherefore, they did not try to hold survivors accountable.
At least some of the people on these boats have been identified as fishermenand Defense Department officials failed to convince many members of Congress that the strikes were legal and justified. republicans and Democrats were equally critical of them, especially after it became known that the military had bombed survivors of the first boat strike back in September maybe war crime. It now appears that Hegseth and the rest of the Defense Department want to avoid any legal liability.
