The Trump administration says the group should be treated as an invading force. Critics say it’s a pretext for the administration’s anti-immigrant narrative.

Tren de Aragua was originally a prison gang that Hector Guerrero Flores turned into a "transnational criminal organisation", according the US state department, which is offering a reward of $5m for information that could lead to his arrest. Guerrero Flores, 41, was in and out of Tocorón for more than a decade.

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.

A soccer player, political activists and a father of a U.S. citizen were among the immigrants sent to the Central American notorious prison based on their tattoos.