Venezuelan mother says son sent to El Salvador mega-prison from US

Some relatives of accused and deported gang members say their sons have been wrongly swept up in a Trump administration crackdown.

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It had been 18 months since he had migrated to the US to begin a new life but he had told her that he was now being deported back to Caracas, Venezuela's capital, for being in the US illegally. They had spoken that morning, just before he was due to depart.

"I thought it was a good sign that he was being deported [to Caracas]," Myrelis Casique López recalled. She wanted him home.

But he never arrived. And while watching a television news report on Sunday, Ms Casique was shocked to see her son, not in the US or Venezuela but 1,430 miles (2,300km) away in El Salvador.

The footage showed 238 Venezuelans sent by US authorities to the Terrorism Confinement Centre, or Cecot, a notorious mega-jail. She saw men with shaved heads and shackles on their hands and feet, being forcefully escorted by heavily-armed security forces.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz032xjyyzyo

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