It is important, family members and lawyers were not aware of the removal of their loved ones and their customers, which makes it impossible to challenge their removal.
John Datton, a lawyer for a Venezuelan citizen, told TPM that every step has been intentionally organized. “They knew what they were doing was a mistake,” Datton said. “The way they did it, and how they did that, in the middle of the night, how they did not allow them to tell their families. They didn’t tell them. They did not tell us as lawyers.”
However, rumors that Trump had called AEA, and at 2 am on March 15, Lee Gield, ACLU’s lawyer, filed a lawsuit to prevent removal operations. While the White House said that AEA was signed on March 14, it did not appear on the government’s website until 3:53 pm the next day.