Documents support claim ICE held mentally ill US citizen since Jan

Iowa City: For nearly a year, immigration authorities have detained and sought to deport a mentally ill man whose mother, lawyers and public records say, was born in the United States and not Jamaica, as he claims, a review by The Associated Press found.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has no authority to detain US citizens, but has long done so, usually for hours or days, when officers mistake identities or can’t immediately verify citizenship. Immigration lawyers say a nearly 10-month improper detention would be rare but not unprecedented.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, disputes that the man is a US citizen and alleges, without providing evidence, that the birth certificate he submitted to obtain a US passport that he held for 15 years was fraudulent. But AP’s review found documents that support claims by his mother and legal team that he was born in Florida and therefore not subject to ICE’s authority.

The findings suggest that a cursory investigation, lax oversight, and possibly a refusal to admit a mistake may have ensnared a US citizen for nearly all of 2026 as the Trump administration rushes to deport large numbers of people suspected of being in the country illegally.

Detainee insists he was born in Jamaica

Still locked up at ICE’s so-called Speedway Slammer in Indiana is Phillip James, a 39-year-old who also goes by the name Felibi Siagha-Coke, legal filings show. His lawyers are appealing an immigration judge’s ruling that he be deported to Jamaica, and a federal judge has indicated he could soon rule on a petition to free him from custody.

In seeking to detain and deport him, immigration authorities relied on James’ word that he was born in Jamaica and entered the US illegally in 2009, the AP review found. But Jamaican officials have denied any record that he was born or has citizenship there, and James has been unable to provide proof, public records show.

James’ insistence that he was born in Jamaica is a grand delusion, a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia with which he has been diagnosed, according to reports filed in court by medical experts who have recently assessed him. In particular, he claims that he is the illegitimate son of a former Jamaican prime minister and the descendant of a royal family in Lebanon, where he also claims citizenship despite a lack of evidence.

One psychologist concluded James was not “a reliable historian due to the serious nature of his mental illness, including a deeply entrenched delusional belief system.”

Expert says case shows how ICE mishandles citizenship disputes

Northwestern University professor Jacqueline Stevens, who has studied ICE’s wrongful detention of citizens for two decades, said she is not surprised ICE would seek to deport James based on his claims of being foreign-born. She said she was familiar with other cases where mental illness and disabilities have played a role in similar injustices.

“What’s going on in these cases is that evidence that’s consistent with deportation is treated as accurate and evidence that is inconsistent is treated as fraudulent,” she said. “This case is not a one-off. This is a feature, not a bug, of how ICE handles claims of US citizenship.”

The Department of Homeland Security denied that ICE detains US citizens, and says detainees facing removal proceedings receive due process.

The records detailing James’ claim to citizenship, like thousands of cases involving ICE detainees, were not available in the federal court system’s online database. The AP, with the assistance of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, has filed a lawsuit to overturn a policy limiting access to such documents.

A volunteer for the group Habeas Dockets, a nonprofit which works to make the records publicly available, went to an Indiana courthouse to make copies of the records at AP’s request.

Detainee had a US passport for 15 years

James was born to a US citizen mother and Jamaican national father in Orange County, Florida, in 1987, according to the birth certificate filed by his lawyers and attested to by his mother. He has suffered from mental illness since he was a child, according to an affidavit submitted by his mother. He lived in Florida with his father, who died in 2024, after he became hard to control as an adolescent, the affidavit said.

A 1988 court document in a case that established James’ paternity, obtained independently by AP, matches details on the birth certificate, including his date of birth, the identities of his birth parents and their residence in Florida.

He was issued a US passport in 2008 under his birth name, submitting the birth certificate with his application. In 2023, he asked for a new passport after getting a court order to change his name to Felipe Bella De Campbell Coke in New York, and that was also approved.

But beginning in 2024, for reasons that are unclear, he filed a series of applications for US citizenship and protections from deportation. He claimed he was born in Jamaica and acquired citizenship as an adopted child of US citizens, telling a convoluted story that could not be verified and falsely claiming he was born in 1992.

Nonetheless, the government revoked his passport and denied his application for citizenship. It said he was born in Jamaica in the same month as James in 1987 and that his “true identity” was Felibi Siagha Baladi Kambil Coke, a name he had recently adopted.

The decision revoking his passport did not elaborate on how it reached that conclusion. Jamaican authorities have told James’ lawyers that they have no record of the birth or citizenship of a person by that name, according to court filings.

The Department of Homeland Security told AP the original passport was issued based on a “fraudulent birth certificate” but did not answer follow-up questions or provide any proof.

Records show James could not explain how he ended up with a Florida birth certificate.

“To this day I don’t understand,” he said in a July 2025 interview with US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

ICE arrested him after immigration court hearing

Immigration authorities alleged he was in the country illegally after his applications for citizenship were rejected. In targeting James, ICE pointed to a criminal history that includes a 2011 assault with a deadly weapon conviction that sent him to prison in Florida for five years. But records in that case, and others, list him as a US citizen.

ICE initiated proceedings to remove him in December 2025, issuing a notice to appear in immigration court, when he was living in New York City. A judge postponed his removal proceedings on Jan. 5, and agents arrested him after the hearing.

James was taken to the Miami Detention Centre in Bunker Hill, Indiana, a maximum-security prison that had recently started housing up to 1,000 ICE detainees under a state-federal partnership. Nicknamed the Speedway Slammer by the White House in a nod to Indiana’s connection to motor racing, the facility has faced complaints about overcrowding and medical neglect, and at least two detainees have died.

It’s a lucrative arrangement for the state that could generate USD 213 million in the first two years — including payments of USD 291 per detainee per day, over three times ICE’s median bed rate of USD 92. Gov. Mike Braun’s office declined to comment on James’ case.

Detainee initially acted as his own lawyer

Unlike criminal defendants, detainees are not guaranteed legal counsel. James initially acted as his own attorney in challenging his detention as unlawful, calling himself a Jamaican native and claiming citizenship in Lebanon.

Lawyers representing ICE and the immigration judge who ordered his removal to Jamaica in April have taken James at his word, court records show. Other than his claims of Jamaican birth, ICE submitted evidence showing he applied for a Jamaican national insurance registration card, which is available to noncitizens.

James is now represented by the Bronx Defenders, a nonprofit which has a contract to represent indigent New York detainees.

After discovering the birth certificate and his mother in Florida, they filed a petition in federal court seeking his release on Aug. 19. They’re also appealing his removal order to the Board of Immigration Appeals. His lawyers declined to comment and said James would not grant an interview.

The government has not acknowledged any error. In a Sept. 28 filing, Assistant US Attorney Brian Irvin called James “a native of Jamaica and a citizen of Lebanon who entered the United States without admission.” Irvin argued James’ claim to citizenship should be decided in immigration court, rather than by a federal judge.

US District Judge Damon Leichty is expected to rule on the petition seeking James’ release.

Deborah Fleischaker, a former ICE official who once served as the agency’s chief of staff, said the James case was complicated, but the evidence that he’s a US citizen appears strong. Wrongful detentions happen, she said, “but you’d like it to be very rare and for as brief a time as possible.”

She and other experts said Jamaican authorities would not likely accept James if he’s not a citizen there, but that ICE could still try to remove him to a third-party country.

“I would worry that in their quest for deportation numbers, he is in the machine,” she said.

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