Fabian Schmidt was returning home from Luxembourg last Friday when his life took a nightmarish turn. The electrical engineer, a legal permanent resident for 17 years, never made it past customs at Boston’s Logan Airport.

His partner waited four hours before learning he had been kidnapped by immigration officials. No charges were filed. No court hearing was scheduled. Schmidt simply disappeared into the labyrinthine detention system that has expanded dramatically under the Trump administration.

“It was just said that his green card was flagged,” Astrid Senior, Schmidt’s mother, told WGBH. What followed was what she described as a harrowing ordeal of “violent interrogation,” during which Schmidt was stripped naked, subjected to a cold shower, and denied medication for anxiety and depression.

Schmidt is currently being held at the Donald W. Wyatt detention facility in Central Falls, a facility with a troubling history of housing immigrants with legal status and asylum seekers who should not have been imprisoned.

Notably, Schmidt is white and originally from Germany, signaling that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is expanding beyond its initial focus on immigrants of color. Legal experts point to this case as evidence that the administration’s tactics are becoming more indiscriminate.

“He hardly got anything to drink. And then he wasn’t feeling very well and he collapsed,” Senior told reporters. Schmidt was subsequently hospitalized at Mass General with influenza before being transferred to the ICE regional headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts, and then to Wyatt.

Immigration attorneys say Schmidt’s treatment represents a clear violation of due process. “Only the immigration judge can take away that green card,” said Curtis Morrison, an immigration attorney with experience litigating against the Trump administration. “The law as it is now — he needs to be able to appear before an immigration judge.”

No such hearing has been scheduled. In fact, Schmidt reported to his mother that immigration agents pressured him to voluntarily surrender his green card during the interrogation.

Schmidt’s case is not isolated. Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil, also a green card holder, was recently detained following protests at Columbia University. These cases represent a troubling pattern of kidnapping legal residents without formal charges or proper judicial review.

Gregory Chen, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, noted, “We have seen a disturbing trend from the federal government to target people who have legal immigration status.”

Legal scholars warn that without significant pushback, these tactics could eventually extend to American citizens. The unlawful kidnapping and detention of legal permanent residents without charges represents a testing ground for broader authoritarian measures against all Americans.

Meanwhile, Democratic leadership has shown little appetite for confrontation with the administration on immigration issues. Just yesterday, Democrats voted to approve a government funding bill that granted all of the administration’s requests without securing any protections for government workers fired under DOGE, immigrants, or detention oversight.

Schmidt’s family, including his partner (a cardiologist) and 8-year-old daughter (a U.S. citizen), are working with attorneys and the German consulate to secure his release.

As he sits in a cell at Wyatt, Schmidt joins hundreds of others caught in a detention system that increasingly disregards legal status. “Fabian said to me that he feels he’s very fearful and is frightened,” his mother told reporters.

For now, Schmidt remains in legal limbo — a permanent resident with a valid green card, held without charges in a country he has called home for 17 years.