Few will mourn the recent killing of Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores. Flores was the alleged leader of Tren de Aragua (TdA), better known by his alias, “Niño Guerrero,” who was killed at President Trump’s order in a “lethal kinetic strike” that U.S. armed forces fired at a building in Venezuela — as the president put it in a celebratory Truth Social post on Friday, which embedded video of the attack.

If Guerrero committed the crimes he was accused of, he was a murderous, evil man. But that’s just it: he was accused of crimes. There is no declaration of war or congressional authorization to use military force against TdA. The Trump administration has dubiously designated TdA as a terrorist organization, but as I have explained before, such a designation does not license the use of lethal force. Designation is a legal process that helps our government deprive foreign terrorist organizations of resources and prosecute — not kill — people who provide them with material support.

Guerrero Flores was under indictment in the United States for alleged criminal offenses. That gave the executive branch authority to arrest him, not to kill him (at least, not unless he resisted arrest in a manner that put agents in reasonable fear of serious bodily........

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