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.

Over the weekend, the Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, where they are being held in a maximum security mega-prison called the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT).

It’s not clear how Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents took custody of them, since New York City’s sanctuary laws strictly limit what information the NYPD and the city’s