Fabian Schmidt, the New Hampshire green card holder detained by federal immigration authorities, has been released from detention after nearly two months in federal custody.
His mother Astrid Senior confirmed he was released late Thursday night and declined an interview.
“FABIAN IS FREE and HOME!!!!,” his partner Bhavani Hodgkins posted on Facebook. The account wrote the post was also from Fabian himself, asking for patience and privacy.
“We are OVERWHELMED with love!” Hodgkins posted a video of Schmidt smiling and reuniting with his dog.
His attorney, David Keller, didn’t return a request for comment. Federal immigration enforcement agencies did not immediately return requests for comment, but a detainee lookup portal no longer shows Schmidt in custody.
Schmidt, originally from Germany, was detained at Donald W. Wyatt detention facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island.
He had recently renewed his green card and had no active issues in court.
Schmidt had been visiting Luxembourg and flew back to the United States in March. Hodgkins had gone to pick him up at Logan Airport and waited four hours before calling authorities.
Shortly after his arrest, his mother described Schmidt being “violently interrogated” at Logan Airport for hours — being stripped naked, put in a cold shower by two officials and being put back onto a chair.
She said Schmidt told her immigration agents pressured him to give up his green card. She said he was placed on a mat in a bright room with other people at the airport, with little food or water, suffered sleep deprivation and was denied access to his medication for anxiety and depression.
“He hardly got anything to drink. And then he wasn’t feeling very well and he collapsed,” Senior said at the time.
He was transported by ambulance to Mass General Hospital and was treated for the flu.
Schmidt and his mother moved to the United States in 2007 and received green cards in 2008. He moved from California to New Hampshire in 2022.
Senior described her son as a hardworking electrical engineer with a partner and daughter who are both U.S. citizens.
Schmidt had a misdemeanor charge for having marijuana in his car in 2015, which his mother said was dismissed after laws changed in California around marijuana possession. She says he missed a hearing about the case in 2022 since a notice was never forwarded to his new address.
In March, Customs and Border Protection denied the allegations, calling them “blatantly false with respect to CBP.”
“When an individual is found with drug-related charges and tries to reenter the country, officers will take proper action,” wrote Hilton Beckham, the agency’s Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs, then. The agency didn’t respond to further questions at the time about the specific claims they dispute.
This story was originally published by GBH. It was shared as part of the New England News Collaborative.
