‘The Line Remains Dead to This Day’

The mother and sister of two Trinidadian citizens who the Trump administration killed in a mid-October boat strike have sued the government in federal court, seeking “pecuniary, compensatory, and punitive damages.” 

Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, lived in Las Cuevas, “a small fishing community” in Trinidad and Tobago. Both traveled often to nearby Venezuela for fishing and farming work, per the lawsuit. Both were killed in an October 14 strike.

“[Joseph’s mother] and Mr. Joseph’s wife repeatedly called Mr. Joseph’s cellphone, but the line was dead,” the lawsuit said, after the women saw the news of the strike. “The line remains dead to this day.”

The last time anyone heard from Samaroo, he’d sent his little sister a photo of himself in a life jacket, preparing for the voyage back to Las Cuevas. 

Both families held funeral services, assuming that their loved ones had been killed. 

The Trump administration has claimed that the strikes were part of a war on “narco-terrorists” allegedly transporting drugs. The lawsuit points out that White House Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles said in a December interview that Trump planned to “keep blowing boats up” until Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro resigned. There has been one boat strike since the United States abducted Maduro and his wife. 

“Mr. Joseph and Mr. Samaroo were not members of, or affiliated with, drug cartels,” the lawsuit said. “The Trinidadian government has publicly stated that ‘the government has no information linking Joseph or Samaroo to illegal activities,’ and that it had ‘no information of the victims of U.S. strikes being in possession of illegal drugs, guns, or small arms.’”

The men’s families argue that the strikes constitute “wrongful deaths and extrajudicial killings” under the Death on the High Seas Act and the Alien Tort Statute. They point to the loss of income the two men contributed and, in Joseph’s case, his three small children’s loss of “the nurture, instruction, guidance, physical, intellectual, and moral training they would have received from Mr. Joseph had he lived.” 

The case has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, which the plaintiffs wrote that they chose “in light of this district’s venerable history of adjudicating admiralty disputes.” It’s been assigned to a magistrate judge, who is chosen by the federal judges in the district, rather than by presidential appointment. The ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights are supporting the plaintiffs.  

— Kate Riga

Stephen Miller Behind ‘Massacre’ Line

Because of course he was.

White House deputy chief of staff and top Trump adviser Stephen Miller dictated the language that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and her department used to spin the narrative after ICE killed another American citizen over the weekend, according to new reporting from Axios:

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen,” Noem told a person who relayed her remarks to Axios.

In the hours after the killing, Miller and DHS officials began crafting a statement based on information from officers on the ground, but not those directly involved in the shooting. The officers reportedly mentioned that the victim had a gun and Miller ran with it from there. Per Axios:

“Stephen heard ‘gun’ and knew what the narrative would be: Pretti came to ‘massacre’ cops,” a source briefed on the process of assembling the press statement said.

— Nicole LaFond

A Stagnant Labor Economy May Finally Be Heading Downward

Two new data sets published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday painted a grim picture of how the nation’s economy is faring under President Trump’s policies and could put the already besieged Federal Reserve in another sticky situation.

The November BLS State Job Openings and Labor Turnover, or State JOLTS survey — which measures labor indicators including state-level job loss and quits, hires, and job openings — found, in short, fewer people are being hired, nominally more people are losing or leaving jobs, and there are fewer job openings for those who are looking. November saw the smallest number of job openings since September 2024. Year over year, the number and rate of job openings is down nationally. 

BLS also published its December state-level unemployment report which found that while the national unemployment rate ticked down slightly from 4.5% in November to 4.4% in December, unemployment rates were up in six states. Of the states with statistically significant unemployment rate changes, more saw their unemployment rate go up than down year over year, the report found.

The decreases are very modest, but they don’t come as a blip. They instead continue the anticipated downward tick on a labor market experiencing monthslong stagnation.

And the numbers present an additional challenge to Fed governors, who are meeting this week to decide whether to cut interest rates and must weigh what’s more important: tackling above-target inflation by holding rates, or protecting people’s jobs by cutting them.

“They’re in an extraordinarily difficult situation,” Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley’s chief global economist, told Bloomberg Surveillance on Monday. “If you look at the aggregate spending numbers, those are coming in pretty solid. Then you look at the employment numbers and the nonfarm payrolls numbers are coming in really, really soft. And that combination is pretty ahistoric.”

— Layla A. Jones

In Case You Missed It

More from Khaya Himmelman on the DOJ’s efforts to unconstitutionally force states to hand over voter data: Secs of State Targeted By DOJ Voter Data Demands Condemn Bondi Letter to Minnesota

Catch up on our live coverage here: Democrats Demand Noem be Fired, Congressional Accountability for ICE

TPM Cafe: Alex Pretti’s Killing Has Upended the Right’s Narratives About Government Overreach

Morning Memo: Bovino Is Out As Trump Recasts Lead Goon Role

Josh Marshall: Trump Pitches a Kinder, Gentler ICE Wilding Spree As His Top Fluffers Fight Amongst Themselves

Yesterday’s Most Read Story

Infuriated By Weekend Killing, Senate Dems Refuse to Fund ICE

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