This is a web edition of GBH Daily, a weekday newsletter bringing you local stories you can trust so you can stay informed without feeling overwhelmed.

Sign up here!

☔Cloudy day, with showers, a chance of afternoon thunderstorms and highs around 70. Sunset is at 7:59 p.m.

Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a challenge to President Donald Trump’s executive order to do away with birthright citizenship — the practice, enshrined in the 14th Amendment, that says everyone born in the U.S. automatically becomes a citizen. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, one of 18 state attorneys general who filed the lawsuit, will be in Washington for the oral arguments. We’ll be bringing you coverage on GBHNews.org, at 89.7 FM, and in tomorrow’s newsletter.

And, later this evening, GBH News political reporter Saraya Wintersmith moderates a candidate forum between Boston mayoral hopefuls, held by the Boston Ward Committee Democrats: current Mayor Michelle Wu, Josh Kraft, Domingos DaRosa, and Kerry Augustin. We’ll have highlights from that conversation for you tomorrow.

Four Things to Know

State hiring freeze: The Massachusetts state government’s executive branch will go into a hiring freeze at the end of the month because of inflation and uncertainty around federal funding, Gov. Maura Healey announced Wednesday. 

That said: 10 days ago, the state’s Department of Revenue said April’s tax collections beat their expectations by more than $1 billion, mostly because of taxes on income over $1 million and capital gains. State law says the so-called millionaires tax revenue can only be used for transportation and education; the state’s fastest-growing expenses are in health care and human services. Regular tax collections are “flat or slightly below benchmark” through the last 10 months, Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz said this week.

Worcester ICE fallout: More than 200 people protested outside of Worcester City Hall this week, saying they don’t want their city’s police department to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Last week, 30 people tried to keep ICE agents from detaining a woman named Rosane Ferreira De Oliveira on Eureka Street. Worcester police officers arrested Ferreira De Oliveira’s 16-year-old daughter and a local school committee candidate.

Worcester police leaders said their officers were there for crowd control, not as part of ICE’s operation. Residents said they worried about the force officers used when they pinned the teenager to the ground. “We need you to be accountable to us, to be responsible to us, to protect us — and we need the Worcester police to do the same,” Worcester resident Ginny Ryan told councilors.

Harvard is making plans for moving forward with Trump administration cuts to the university’s budget hitting $3 billion. Some researchers got orders to stop work on projects funded by federal government money, and other departments were told to be ready for cuts of up to 20% of their budget.

“Destruction seems to be very fast,” one social scientist told GBH News. “Figuring out what a new version of stability will look like will take a long time.”

How did your state representative and senator vote on a particular bill? It’s a simple question with a not-so-straightforward answer. Joint committee votes are not fully public. While other roll-calls are technically available online, uncovering them requires navigating a maze of bill numbers and PDFs buried in the legislature’s website.

Now a group of people in Cambridge — a mix of young people and retirees who said they’re tired of feeling like their elected representatives aren’t listening to them — are trying to get legislators to make their work more public. “It’s finally coming to a boil and we are striking while the iron is hot,” said Pete Septoff, a founding member of the Cambridge Committee for Transparency and Accountability.

Fabian Schmidt speaks out for the first time since his detention

Fabian Schmidt, a Green Card holder who was detained at Logan Airport in March and says Customs and Border Patrol agents violently interrogated him, is back home in New Hampshire after being released late last week.

“I love this country and the people in it so much — but I’ll tell you, the system is broken,” Schmidt told GBH’s Sarah Betancourt. “I think that we need to stand together strongly and ensure that we can fix this system and do proper legal work, because at the end of the day, when you hold your hand on your chest and you say 'liberty and justice for all,' it should mean something to all of us.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection deny allegations of mistreatment.

“The Trump Administration is enforcing immigration laws — something the previous administration failed to do,” Hilton Beckham, assistant commissioner of public affairs, said in a statement.

Schmidt, an electrical engineer who was born in Germany and has lived in the U.S. for 18 years, said he was returning from a trip to visit family on March 7. He showed his Green Card, which he had recently renewed, to a Customs and Border Patrol agent and said he was told to go into a room for secondary questioning.

“As soon as I stepped foot in there, I started getting violently interrogated, verbally abused,” he said.

Schmidt was arrested in California in 2016 on a misdemeanor for drug possession , which prosecutors later dismissed, and a DUI, for which he paid fines and completed a probation period. At Logan Airport, he said, agents asked him about his criminal record.

Schmidt also said agents strip-searched him, took his smartwatch and did not let him call his family, the German embassy or a lawyer. An agent asked him how much money he had in his bank account and where his parents live.

Hours later, an agent told him he was “inadmissible.” 

“He told me I was a flight risk and that he was scared that I would enter through a southern border,” Schmidt said. “I tried reminding him that I’m from Germany, I have a good family, none of us would ever sneak into a border, nor do I need to sneak into the border. I’m a legal permanent resident that’s lived here for 18 years.”

Three days after he landed, Schmidt was still in Logan Airport, being questioned and not able to contact his loved ones or an attorney, he said. He was feeling increasingly ill, he said, and was only given instant noodles and a bottle of water for meals. He eventually collapsed in a bathroom and told an agent he had to see a doctor.

“He said, 'Oh, you’re just gonna med out like everybody, huh?’ That’s the verbatim words. I was like, 'Med out? I don’t even know what that means,'” Schmidt said. Agents took him to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was handcuffed to the bed. CBP agents would not leave him for medical examinations.

“They took me back into that same room that I was just talking about earlier. I was put back in the same chairs. Another grueling 18 hours went by,” he said. “It was degrading, it’s dehumanizing. It is horrendous. People shouldn’t be treated like that, especially when they’re in distress.”

After four days at Logan Airport, he was moved to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island. There he was able to call his mother, contact his partner and hire a lawyer. People around him, he said, kept getting deported. He had a scheduled immigration court hearing and was sure he would be, too.

But last week, he got a call from his partner Bhavani Hodgkins saying he was getting released. They reunited at an ICE facility in Burlington, Mass.

“She ran into my arms. I was just ecstatic as I finally got to hug her — It was a big moment to breathe fresh air and to have your partner back,” he said.

Now Schmidt is trying to adjust to life outside of detention again, and experiencing symptoms of stress after a traumatic experience. But he said he wants to do “bigger picture things, that’s gonna be something that adds transparency to the system.”

He also proposed to Hodgkins on Saturday night. She said yes.

You can watch Schmidt’s full interview with GBH News reporter Sarah Betancourt, who was the first to break the news about his detention.