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The Trump administration responded Tuesday to a New York Times report that raised troubling questions about the whereabouts of a Venezuelan migrant in U.S. custody.

But even the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to clear up the confusion surrounding Ricardo Prada Vasquez, who friends say “simply disappeared,” sent alarm bells ringing for American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.

“It should HORRIFY you that it took a major news story for @DHSGov to say publicly that it imprisoned someone in El Salvador five weeks ago,” Reichlin-Melnick told his social media followers. “The man never once got a trial. No judge ever found him to be a public safety threat or a member of a gang. No due process. No nothing.”

The prominent immigration attorney was reacting to a DHS statement that unsurprisingly pegged Vasquez as a “confirmed member of Tren de Aragua,” who the agency said on Tuesday was removed from the country last month.

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“On Jan. 15, Prada was encountered at the Detroit Windsor Tunnel in Detroit, Michigan attempting to enter the U.S. from Canada and was referred to secondary inspection,” the DHS statement said. “Further investigation resulted in Prada being designated a public safety threat as a confirmed member of TdA and in violation of his conditions of admission. Prada was apprehended and transferred to ICE Michigan for detention. On Feb. 27, an immigration judge ordered Prada removed from the U.S. On March 15, Prada was removed to El Salvador.”

That timeline appears to fit the Times’ reporting that stated Prada had not been heard from or seen since March 15, when the Trump administration flew out planes carrying Venezuelan migrants from Texas to El Salvador.

But, Prada’s name did not appear “on the list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador that day,” nor did he appear “in the photos and videos released by the authorities of shackled men with shaved heads,” the Times reported.

A respected immigration attorney expressed his shock and dismay on social media over the fate of a Venezuelan immigrant who disappeared after accidentally crossing into Canada and being detained by U.S. authorities.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, wrote Tuesday, "This story from today is SHOCKING. The United States has disappeared a man. His last known whereabouts on March 15 was in the same place as others sent to El Salvador, but his name doesn't appear on the leaked list of people sent there. He is, for all intents and purposes, gone."

The story Reichlin-Melnick referred to was written by Miriam Jordan, national immigration correspondent for The New York Times.

Jordan wrote about Ricardo Prada Vásquez, who was working a delivery job in Detroit.

He was heading to the address to drop off a McDonald's order "when he erroneously turned onto the Ambassador Bridge, which leads to Canada. It is a common mistake even for those who live in the Michigan border city. But for Mr. Prada, 32, it proved fateful," she wrote.

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U.S. authorities took Prada into custody when he tried to re-enter the country, and he was ordered deported," Jordan wrote.

"That evening, the Trump administration flew three planes carrying Venezuelan migrants from the Texas facility to El Salvador, where they have been ever since, locked up in a maximum-security prison and denied contact with the outside world."

According to Jordan, Prada has not been heard from or seen since.

"He is not on the list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador that day. He does not appear in the photos and videos released by the authorities of shackled men with shaved heads."

Jordan quoted a friend of Prada's saying, "He has simply disappeared."

"Mr. Prada’s disappearance has created concerns that more immigrants have been deported to El Salvador than previously known," Jordan wrote. "It also raises the question of whether some deportees may have been sent to other countries with no record of it. The U.S. authorities have confirmed that he was removed from the United States. But to where?"

Read The New York Times article here.