Mervin Yamarte's family in Venezuela thought the 29-year-old -- arrested by US authorities amid President Donald Trump's migrant crackdown -- would be put on a deportation flight home. But the plane never arrived.

Instead, they learned he had been flown to El Salvador after spotting him in a video, head shaven and bowed, sitting on the floor of a maximum security prison.

Yamarte was arrested last week at his home in Dallas with three friends, all of whom survived the brutal Darien jungle on their journey north in September 2023.

Three days after being detained, they were deported in shackles to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), accused of being members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which has a presence in the United States.

Mervin and his friends were among 238 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador under a centuries-old wartime act invoked by Donald Trump which can be used to repel an "invasion" or "predatory incursion" by an enemy country.

The deportations took place despite a US........

© International Business Times