Families of Venezuelan deportees held in El Salvador’s infamous Cecot prison can petition the Salvadoran government for their release – but the fruitfulness of that process is an open question in a country accused of arbitrary detention by rights groups and even the US State Department.

Immigration officials transported 238 Venezuelan men from the United States to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador over the weekend, despite a court order from a federal judge prohibiting the government from carrying out the expulsions.

O n the night of Saturday, March 15, three planes touched down in El Salvador, carrying 261 men deported from the United States. A few dozen were Salvadoran, but most of the men were Venezuelans the Trump Administration had designated as gang members and deported, with little or no due process. I was there to document their arrival.