IOWA CITY, Iowa — 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 U.S. citizens, but has long done so, usually for hours or days, when officers mistake identities or can’t immediately verify citizenship. 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. 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. 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. “This case is not a one-off. This is a feature, not a bug, of how ICE handles claims of U.S. 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 U.S. citizen and alleges, without providing evidence, that the birth certificate he submitted to obtain a U.S. passport that he held for 15 years was fraudulent. The findings suggest that a cursory investigation, lax oversight, and possibly a refusal to admit a mistake may have ensnared a U.S. citizen for nearly all of 2026 as the Trump administration rushes to deport large numbers of people suspected of being in the country illegally. 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. In seeking to detain and deport him, immigration authorities relied on James’ word that he was born in Jamaica and entered the U.S. illegally in 2009, the review found.
But ’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. 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.
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. 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. The Department of Homeland Security denied that ICE detains U.S. 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 , 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 ’s request. Nonetheless, the government revoked his passport and denied his application for citizenship. The decision revoking his passport did not elaborate on how it reached that conclusion. Records show James could not explain how he ended up with a Florida birth certificate. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Immigration authorities alleged he was in the country illegally after his applications for citizenship were rejected. But records in that case, and others, list him as a U.S. citizen. The government has not acknowledged any error. In a Sept. 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. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
James was born to a U.S. 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 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 , 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 U.S. 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 also was approved. But beginning in 2024, for reasons that are unclear, he filed a series of applications for U.S. citizenship and protections from deportation. He claimed he was born in Jamaica and acquired citizenship as an adopted child of U.S. citizens, telling a convoluted story that could not be verified and falsely claiming he was born in 1992. 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. 28 filing, Assistant U.S.
He has suffered from mental illness since he was a child, according to an affidavit submitted by his mother. 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. 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 the original passport was issued based on a “fraudulent birth certificate” but did not answer follow-up questions or provide any proof. “To this day I don’t understand,” he said in a July 2025 interview with U.S. 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.
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. 5 and agents arrested him after the hearing. James was taken to the Miami Detention Center in Bunker Hill, Indiana, a maximum-security prison that had recently started housing up to 1,000 ICE detainees under a state-federal partnership. It’s a lucrative arrangement for the state that could generate $213 million in the first two years — including payments of $291 per detainee per day, over three times ICE’s median bed rate of $92. 19.
A judge postponed his removal proceedings on Jan. 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. Gov. Mike Braun’s office declined to comment on James’ case. 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 Jamaica 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. They’re also appealing his removal order to the Board of Immigration Appeals. U.S. District Judge Damon Leichty is expected to rule on the petition seeking James’ release.
His lawyers declined to comment and said James would not grant an interview. 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 U.S. 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.”
