ICE Agents Abduct Tufts University Student While Hiding Their Faces

Crucially, family members and attorneys were not made aware of the removal of their loved ones and clients, making it impossible to challenge their removal.

John Dutton, an attorney for one of the Venezuelan nationals, told TPM that it seemed to him that every move had been purposefully orchestrated. “They knew that what they were doing was wrong,” Dutton said. “The way they did it, how they did it, in the middle of the night, how they didn’t allow them to tell their families. They didn’t tell them. They didn’t tell us as attorneys.”

Still, rumors that Trump had invoked the AEA circulated, and at 2 a.m. on March 15, Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney, filed suit to block their removals. While the White House said the AEA order was signed on March 14, it did not appear on the government’s website until 3:53 p.m. the next day.