As some of my readers know, I am an active-duty judge advocate (read—attorney) for the Coast Guard. My work as a Coast Guard judge advocate has taken me to some fascinating places, including a tour as a Special Assistant United States Attorney (SAUSA) in Puerto Rico, where I focused on investigating drug trafficking and human smuggling cases. It was there that I developed a strong interest in the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (MDLEA), which inspired me to create this blog. More recently, in the summer of 2024, I transferred to the Coast Guard’s Maritime Law Enforcement Academy (MLEA) in Charleston, SC, as their Staff Judge Advocate (SJA).
Why am I telling you this? Well, you might be wondering why the blog has been less active. There are two main reasons. First, as the SJA of the MLEA, much of my legal analysis and summaries are now primarily provided to our instructors and staff, who are directly responsible for training the Coast Guard’s boarding officers and maritime law enforcement specialists (MEs). Because I provide these opinions in my official capacity, I’m limited in my ability to post the same material on the MDLEA Blog. Second, and more importantly, there simply haven’t been as many significant MDLEA decisions from the courts recently. This likely stems from a February 2025 Department of Justice (DOJ) memorandum regarding the “Total Elimination of Cartels and Transnational Criminal Organizations.”
While this initiative sounds like it would lead to more prosecutions and thus, more court decisions, the reality is different. The DOJ memo outlines a strategy that prioritizes the removal of low-level targets without immigration status from the United States, rather than pursuing lengthy and resource-intensive criminal prosecutions. Specifically, the memo states the following:
“… under the total-elimination policy, it will often be prudent to pursue removal from the United States of a low-level investigative target without immigration status, rather than incurring the time and resource costs associated with criminal prosecution. Similarly, because the Department is working toward elimination of these threats from the homeland, it will rarely be consistent with this policy to pursue foreign arrests and extraditions of targets who may be eligible for safety-valve relief or minor role adjustments. This includes foreign arrests of low-level narcotics offenders pursuant to the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act under Chapter 705 of Title 46. Resources currently devoted to such arrests, including at the Maritime Unit of the Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Section, shall be redirected toward investigations involving inspections, interdictions, seizures, and forfeitures of commercial shipping vessels transporting narcotics, precursor chemicals, petroleum products, and/or human trafficking and smuggling victims.”
So, what does that mean? In simpler terms, this policy means that instead of bringing most of the individuals interdicted on go-fast vessels to the United States for prosecution, they are being returned to their home countries. This shift in strategy has resulted in fewer MDLEA cases making their way through the court system, and consequently, fewer new decisions addressing substantive legal issues.
The MDLEA cases that are being decided now primarily concern reductions in sentences, rather than fundamental questions about the law itself.