A German-American from Nashua has been jailed for more than a month. It's still unclear why.

Yahoo

15-04-2025

Protesters gather to demand freedom and due process for Fabian Schmidt — a German-born New Hampshire man being held at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island, on Tuesday, March 18, 2025. Left foreground, Zack Mezera of Working Families Party speaks to the crowd with Fr. Jarrett Kerbel of Saint Luke's in East Greenwich at bottom right. (Photo by Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current)
Fabian Schmidt, a German-American man living in Nashua, was returning home from a visit to Luxembourg on March 7 when he was detained by immigration officials at Boston Logan International Airport in early March and taken to a detention center in Rhode Island, according to his attorney.
Schmidt's family said that, upon his detainment, Schmidt was stripped naked, placed in a cold shower, and violently interrogated, according to a press release from attorney David Keller. He was also reportedly being denied his medications for anxiety and depression, and being given little food and water as officials pressured him to relinquish his green card.
His mother, Astrid Senior, told NBC News that she doesn't know why her son was being held.
'I feel helpless, absolutely helpless,' she told the news broadcaster.
Schmidt has lived in the U.S. since he was a teenager and has legal permanent resident status, according to the family. Court records in California, where he previously lived, show that he faced misdemeanor charges for possession of a controlled substance and driving under the influence in 2015 and 2016, respectively, among other minor charges. However, his family said those issues had been resolved in the courts and are no longer ongoing.
Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — have not provided a justification for Schmidt's detainment. They have, however, denied the allegations that he was violently interrogated.
'These claims are blatantly false with respect to CBP,' Hilton Beckham, assistant commissioner of public affairs for Customs and Border Protection said in a statement to the Bulletin. 'When an individual is found with drug-related charges and tries to reenter the country, officers will take proper action.'
Schmidt has a court date scheduled in June in Boston.
U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan said her office, in collaboration with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen's office, has inquired within DHS and spoken with Schmidt's family. She declined to speak on the issue during an event Monday, and said she is 'honoring the wishes of the family and their legal advisers.'
'We are in touch with Homeland Security and Mr. Schmidt's family, but we are also respecting their privacy,' Hassan said. 'There's ongoing litigation about it, so we will respect the privacy but we continue to be in touch with them.'
She would not say whether she knows the justification for his detainment.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte's office did not respond to requests for comment.
Schmidt is not the only legal U.S. immigrant to be part of a high profile legal battle over their immigration status. President Donald Trump, who made cracking down on immigration and mass deportation central tenets of his campaign in 2024, and his administration have launched a public campaign of deportations and detainments that have been decried as illegal and unethical after being reported by the press.
In one of the highest profile immigration-related incidents, Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and an Algerian citizen with permanent legal resident status in the U.S., was arrested by ICE officials in his New York City apartment on March 8, one day after Schmidt was detained. Khalil, who was born to Palestinian parents in a refugee enclave in Syria before ultimately immigrating to the U.S. and marrying a citizen, was an organizer of protests on Columbia University's campus against the Israeli occupation and military action in Gaza. The State Department is currently attempting to revoke his legal status in the country and deport him as punishment for his role in the protests, a move that has generated an uproar among progressives and immigration advocates who believe Khalil has a protected right to free speech. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Khalil engaged in 'antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which foster a hostile environment for Jewish students in the U.S.' On Friday, a judge in Louisiana ruled that the State Department can deport Khalil. A federal court in New Jersey is expected to hear further appeals in the case.
Several other university students who protested Israel's war in Gaza have also been targeted by the Trump administration.
Tufts University Ph.D. student Rümeysa Öztürk, from Turkey with a student visa, was arrested by ICE agents on March 25 in Somerville, Mass. Video of her arrest, which shows six agents in plain clothes, some of whom were obscuring their badges or wearing hoods or face coverings, went viral online and sparked furor. While federal officials have not publicly provided justification for her arrest, Öztürk was the author of a 2024 op-ed in the university's student newspaper calling for the university to 'acknowledge the Palestinian genocide' and 'disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.' Hamas was not mentioned in the op-ed.
Another Columbia University student, Yunseo Chung, an undergraduate student who has lived in the U.S. since she was 7 and is a permanent legal resident, was another target of ICE after the administration attempted to deport her over her involvement in the pro-Palesintian protests. However, the administration has been so far unsuccessful in deporting the woman, who was born in South Korea, amid a legal battle. Rubio, in a press conference last month, said the Trump administration has revoked over 300 visas of students who have engaged in pro-Palestine protest activity.
The Trump administration has also moved to purge Venezuelan and other Latin American migrants from the country under the auspices that they have connections to the violent Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs. In March, the Trump administration flew 238 men to El Salvador with no due process. There, they are being detained in a notorious mega prison called the Terrorism Confinement Center, known for brutal conditions and under the control of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has described himself as 'world's coolest dictator.' The administration reportedly used some of the men's tattoos and clothing as the sole evidence of their gang affiliations. However, an analysis of those deportees by CBS News found no criminal records for 179, or roughly 75%, of them.
That includes Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran citizen who's lived in Maryland for 15 years. Even after admitting in court it deported him due to 'administrative error,' the Trump administration refuses to bring Ábrego García back to the U.S., saying it is up to Salvadoran officials to decide his fate. This is despite the Supreme Court ordering the Trump administration to 'facilitate' his return to the country. In an appearance at the White House Monday, Bukele said he would not return Ábrego García, calling the idea 'preposterous' and asking, 'How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?'
Those deported also include a makeup artist who immigrated from Venezuela to California in August named Andry Hernandez Romero. He had no criminal record, no known gang affiliation, and was undergoing the asylum process after fleeing his country over fears he would be persecuted for being gay and his political beliefs, according to his lawyers. Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in these Salvadoran deportations. The move has been criticized for refusing to give the men due process and for its brutality. Rubio said Sunday that another 10 people have been sent to El Salvador.
On Friday, Trump authorized the military to take control of land along the southern border. His announced plan is to station military troops there to detain immigrants traveling into the country from Mexico. He has also previously declared a national emergency arguing 'America's sovereignty is under attack' and that the border is 'overrun by cartels, criminal gangs, known terrorists, human traffickers, smugglers, unvetted military-age males from foreign adversaries, and illicit narcotics that harm Americans.'