Singer 'thrown to the lions' in El Salvador jail

Until five weeks ago, Arturo Suarez was a professional singer, performing in the United States as he waited for his asylum claim to be processed.

Originally from Venezuela, he had entered the US through proper, legal channels. But he is now imprisoned in a notorious jail in El Salvador, sent there by the Trump administration, despite seemingly never having faced trial or committed any crime.

The White House claims he is a gang member but has not provided evidence to support this allegation. His brother, Nelson Suarez, told Sky News he believes his brother's only "crime" is being Venezuelan and having tattoos.

"He is not a gang member," Nelson says, adamantly, "I've come to the conclusion that it has to be because of the tattoos. If you don't have a criminal record, you haven't committed any crime in the United States, what other reason could there be? Because you're Venezuelan?" Arturo, 34, was recording a music video inside a house in March when he was arrested by immigration agents.

He was first taken to a deportation centre in El Paso, Texas, and then, it appears, put on to a military flight to El Salvador. His family have not heard from him since.

Lawyers and immigrant rights groups have been unable to make contact with any of the more than 200 Venezuelan men sent to the CECOT prison, which holds members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs. Tattoo clue to Arturo Suarez's whereabouts Nelson learned his brother is - most likely - in CECOT only because of a photograph he spotted on a news website of a group of inmates, with their hands and feet cuffed, heads shaved and bodies shackled together.

"You can see the hummingbird tattoo on his neck," Nelson says, pointing to the picture. He says Arturo wanted a hummingbird in memory of their late mother.

Arturo has 33 tattoos in total, including a piano, poems and verses from the Bible. It could be that one, or more, of those tattoos landed him at the centre of President Trump's anti-immigration showpiece.

Nelson shows me documents which indicate that Arturo did not have a criminal record in Venezuela, Chile, Colombia or the United States, the four countries he has lived in. Sky News contacted the White House, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for a response to Arturo's case but have not heard back.

In March, Donald Trump signed the Alien Enemies Act, a law from 1798 which has been invoked just three times before, in wartime. It allows the president to detain and deport immigrants living legally in the US if they are from countries deemed "enemies" of the government.

In this instance, Mr Trump claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had "infiltrated the United States" and was "conducting irregular warfare". Gang symbol tattoos Immigration officials have centred on certain tattoos being gang symbols.

Immigration officers were provided with a document called the "Alien Enemy Validation Guide.