A New Hampshire man with a green card was “violently interrogated” by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Boston’s Logan Airport earlier this month and is being detained with no explanation, his family said.
Fabian Schmidt flew back from Luxembourg on March 7, but four hours later his waiting partner had no idea where he was and called authorities, New Hampshire Public Radio reported. Schmidt’s mother, Astrid Senior, told the outlet his green card had been flagged but did not know why.
According to Senior, her son had been “violently interrogated” for hours. He was stripped naked before two officials stuck him under a cold shower and then shoved him back onto a chair, all while agents pressured him to give up his green card, she said.
Held at the airport in a bright room on a mat with other people, he was deprived of food and water, as well as his medications, she said. He was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital after he collapsed, and learned later he had the flu, his mother said.
More than 10 days later, Schmidt is still being held at ICE’s Donald W. Wyatt detention facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island, NHPR said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Hilton Beckham told NHPR on Sunday that the abuse claims are “blatantly false with respect to CBP” but did not give details.
Meanwhile, on Monday in Boston a hearing was being held into the deportation, in apparent violation of a judge’s order, of a Brown University professor and kidney transplant specialist who held a valid H-1B visa. Dr. Rasha Alawieh was detained upon her return from Lebanon and summarily sent back there by way of Paris, initially with no explanation.
CBP has since filed documents in court alleging that her cell phone contained “sympathetic photos and videos” related to the militant group Hezbollah, The Providence Journal reported.
The incidents come as President Trump and his administration crackdown on immigration, deporting hundreds to El Salvador in defiance of a federal judge’s order barring use of an 18th century wartime declaration to justify them.
The highest-profile incident to date is the detention and looming deportation of Palestinian grad student Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent figure in the protests against the Gaza war at Columbia University last year. The government is seeking to revoke his green card.