SUNRISE, FLA. (WSVN) - Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and members of South Florida’s Venezuelan-American community expressed their frustration with the Trump administration’s recent escalation in the Caribbean.
Speaking in Sunrise on Thursday, the congresswoman said the string of decisions to bomb alleged drug-carrying boats out of the ocean is a mistake.
“Extrajudicial murder of Venezuelans is what [Venezuelan leader Nicolas] Maduro does, it’s not what America should do,” said Wasserman Schultz.
Members of the Venezuelan-American caucus said the bombings remind them of what happened back home decades ago.
“I can not believe I am experiencing something that I already experienced in Venezuela all over again in the United States,” said Adelys Ferro, co-founder of the Venezuelan American Caucus.
The attacks on the boats in the Caribbean began in September and have taken place as recently as Wednesday. The Pentagon announced it targeted another alleged drug boat in the Pacific Ocean.
Since the attacks started, the U.S. military has killed 61 people — all alleged to be drug traffickers by the administration.
Recently, the Pentagon surged even more firepower to the region, sending the U.S.S. Gerald Ford and its strike group.
All this escalation, members in the Venezuelan American caucus say, is the wrong way to go about things.
“What he is doing, in many ways, sadly, is very similar to what we know, what we have experienced back in Venezuela, and that similarity doesn’t have to do with any political way of thinking,” said Ferro.
In a sign of further escalation, President Donald Trump has said he’s exploring land strikes in Venezuela.
“Those drug ships aren’t coming in anymore. We can’t find a ship. There are no ships coming in with drugs,” Trump said in Asia.
Trump has declared the people on the boats to be “terrorists,” and his administration has said that the U.S. is in an “armed conflict,” but he has publicly provided no evidence of their alleged crimes or even identified them.
“This is an operation against narcoterrorists – as the Department of War characterizes them, the Al-Qaida of the Western Hemisphere. These are well-funded, dangerous, violent drug cartels that operate as terrorists who are flooding our country with drugs,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump claims the alleged drug trafficking is being orchestrated by Venezuela’s Maduro and says he has authorized covert CIA missions inside that country.
Critics from the South Florida Venezuelan community said on Thursday they wish Congress had more of a say in all this.
“They don’t want to talk to Congress; they don’t want to do the right thing. They are not even taking into consideration the rule of law,” said Ferro.
Republicans, however, say they don’t see an issue.
“He plans to brief members of Congress when he gets back from Asia about future potential military operations against Venezuela and Colombia. So there will be a congressional briefing about a potential expansion from the sea to the land. I support that idea. But I think he has all the authority he needs,” said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.
House Democrats criticized the Trump administration on Thursday for pulling the Pentagon lawyers set to brief them on the U.S. boat strikes against alleged drug traffickers at the last minute. They said they left completely unsatisfied with the information that was shared.
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