Rights watchdog groups in the United States have filed a lawsuit seeking greater clarification on the legal rationale being used to justify the Trump administration’s targeting of alleged drug trafficking vessels off Latin America.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the group’s New York state affiliate, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, seeks the release of an opinion from the internal Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which advises the executive branch on legal matters.

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“The public deserves to know how our government is justifying the cold-blooded murder of civilians as lawful and why it believes it can hand out get-out-of-jail-free cards to people committing these crimes,” Jeffrey Stein, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, said in a press release. “The Trump administration must stop these illegal and immoral strikes, and officials who have carried them out must be held accountable.”

At least 86 people have been killed since the Trump administration announced the first strike in early September, in what the president has depicted as a counter-narcotics effort. A total of 22 declared strikes have been carried out in the Caribbean, even though they are widely considered illegal under both international and US law, since drug trafficking is a criminal activity.

The press statement by the groups says that they hope to force a disclosure from an OLC that “apparently blesses the ongoing strikes as lawful acts in an alleged ‘armed conflict’ with unspecified ‘drug cartels’”.

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Legal experts roundly reject the administration’s claim that drug trafficking constitutes an attack on the US and that alleged traffickers are therefore unlawful combatants who can be killed with military force. But despite their likely illegality, the Trump administration has pressed forward with more strikes and has stated that they will continue, sharing videos of small boats exploding after being struck on social media.

“If the OLC opinion seeks to dress up legalese in order to provide cover for the obvious illegality of these serial homicides, the public needs to see this analysis and ultimately hold accountable all those who facilitate murder in the United States’ name,” said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Some have also cast doubt on the administration’s stated aim of combating drug trafficking, noting that the strikes have a minuscule impact on drug flows.

The campaign also comes during a period of heightened US threats against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who the Trump administration has accused of coordinating the activities of criminal groups despite internal US intelligence assessments that undercut that claim.

The US has deployed a large contingent of forces to the region, including an aircraft carrier and thousands of troops, prompting speculation about a possible attack on Venezuela to topple Maduro.