“Once that door shut in the interrogation area, I knew for sure things were going to get more intense.” Fabian Schmidt has come to pick up his father at the same Boston airport where immigration agents arrested Schmidt in March, and then detained him for two months. Schmidt is one of several legal permanent residents who’ve been caught up in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration. “We were a little scared to come to this airport.” “I can imagine.” Born in Germany, Schmidt moved to the U.S. when he was 16 and later became an electrical engineer. He now lives with his fiancée in Nashua, N.H. On a recent trip coming back from Germany, Customs and Border Protection officers at Boston Logan International Airport detained him over a previous conviction for possession of cocaine. Schmidt says the drugs were not his. His other old misdemeanors, including a D.U.I., were not cited in his removal proceedings. “They told me they had a flag on my green card, that I was inadmissible at the time. And they wouldn’t tell me why.” He says officers strip-searched him in a holding area at the airport. “It’s not just like, ‘Hey, sir, excuse me, can you please stand in this corner so we can politely pat you down?’ It’s like, grab you by your scruff, slam you against the wall.” Under U.S. immigration law, green card holders may be deported if convicted of a crime. “The Obama administration, the Biden administration, they also pursued deportation pretty aggressively in some senses. The Trump administration is simply choosing to arrest lots more people, like green card holders, who have old criminal convictions that have long made them deportable. But those people weren’t priorities for deportation under either the Biden administration or the Obama administration.” Adam Cox is a leading immigration law expert and a professor at New York University. “Fabian’s case, I think, reflects the new decisions by the Trump administration to prioritize the deportation of essentially everyone.” In a statement to The New York Times, the Department of Homeland Security said officers took proper action. Schmidt says he suffered horrendous treatment while in immigration detention. “If I had to use one word to exactly describe that situation, it was ‘dehumanizing.’” He says officers pressured him to give up his green card, denied him access to his lawyer and ignored him for days when he sought medical help. The Department of Homeland Security did not answer questions about his treatment. Schmidt stayed at a detention facility at the airport for five days before he was moved. “At this moment, I was ridden with fear because I didn’t know where I was going. My family didn’t know where I was going. That right there was the last time I was going to see daylight for the next 60 days.” He ended up here, at Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, a maximum security prison in Rhode Island. “I remember walking in there, and all I heard was screaming. It’s loud. It’s bright. Everybody was pounding on the tables. And I realized that this is prison.” The New York Times reached out to the prison about Schmidt’s treatment. But they did not respond. Finally, after two months, Schmidt was released after a criminal court vacated his conviction, citing a lack of evidence. The court’s decision removed the basis for his deportation. “Since I got home, I’m embracing every moment to have these moments back. To take my dog out for a walk or to cook food is amazing.” Schmidt and his lawyer say that they plan on filing a civil lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for his detention and treatment.