BREAKING🚨 ICE has held an American citizen in a maximum-security prison for nine months because agents believed his untreated paranoid schizophrenia over his birth certificate. Phillip James, 39, was born in Orange County, Florida, in 1987 to a mother who is a U.S. citizen. That comes from the birth certificate his lawyers filed and his mother's sworn statement. A 1988 court record that established who his father was matches the certificate: same birth date, same parents, same Florida home. He got a U.S. passport in 2008 and held one for 15 years. Starting in 2024, James filed citizenship applications claiming he was born in Jamaica, that he was the secret son of a former Jamaican prime minister, and that he came from Lebanese royalty. Medical experts who examined him say the Jamaica story is a grand delusion and a symptom of his diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia. One psychologist found he was not "a reliable historian" because of a "deeply entrenched delusional belief system." The government took him at his word anyway and revoked his passport. DHS says his birth certificate is "fraudulent" but hasn't offered any proof and wouldn't answer follow-up questions. Jamaica says it has no record that he was born there or is a citizen. On Jan. 5, agents arrested him in New York right after a judge postponed his immigration hearing. He has been held ever since at the Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana, the maximum-security prison the White House nicknamed the "Speedway Slammer." Detainees there have complained of overcrowding and medical neglect, and at least two have died. Indiana is paid $291 per detainee per day, more than three times ICE's typical rate. James had no lawyer at first, so he argued his own case and kept saying he was Jamaican. In April an immigration judge ordered him deported to Jamaica. ICE pointed to his criminal record to justify targeting him, but those same court records list him as a U.S. citizen. The Bronx Defenders tracked down his birth certificate and his mother, then filed for his release on Aug. 19. On Sept. 28, a federal prosecutor was still calling him "a native of Jamaica and a citizen of Lebanon." DHS says flatly that ICE doesn't detain U.S. citizens. Federal Judge Damon Leichty is expected to rule soon on whether to free him. Deborah Fleischaker, ICE's former chief of staff, says the evidence that he's a citizen looks strong, as Ryan J. Foley first reported in Associated Press. If Jamaica refuses to take him, ICE could try to send him to a third country. "I would worry that in their quest for deportation numbers, he is in the machine," she said.