U.S. Sends Stateless Man to Jamaica in Questionable Deportation
Jermaine Thomas, a 38-year-old man born on a U.S. Army base in Germany to a Jamaican-American father, has found himself stranded in Jamaica, a country he had never visited and has no legal connection to.
Despite living most of his life in the United States, Thomas was deported in late May, shackled at the wrists and ankles, and put on a plane to Kingston as a stateless man.
Thomas’s complicated case began decades ago. Born in 1986 while his father was stationed in Germany, Thomas should have been eligible for U.S. citizenship through his father. However, his family never properly filed the required paperwork with the State Department, such as a Consular Report of Birth Abroad, which would have cemented his status.
In his earlier years, Thomas bounced between military bases and struggled after his parents’ divorce. By age 11, he was living with his father in Florida, trying to stabilize his life. But by adulthood, Thomas says he was battling homelessness and occasional arrests for minor offenses.
His father died in 2010, never fully securing his son’s status. Because of that error, and despite living in the United States since 1989 as a permanent resident, Thomas was legally vulnerable.
His troubles deepened after an eviction in Killeen, Texas, spiralled out of control. Thomas says he was moving his belongings to his front yard with his dog, Miss Sassy Pants, tied nearby. Police arrived, questioning him about the dog’s vaccination status, and ended up arresting him for trespassing, a minor misdemeanour.
Unable to afford bail, Thomas spent 30 days in jail and lost his janitorial job. Hoping to be released, he signed a plea agreement, but instead was transferred into ICE custody in Waco, Texas.
There, his nightmare worsened. Transferred again to a detention center in Conroe, Texas, Thomas says he spent nearly three months locked away with no clear information about his status. Deportation officers told him his was a “unique” case being handled in Washington, D.C.
“You keep explaining to me that I’m being detained in suspended custody, but if I don’t get a release date or see a judge, that’s pretty much a life sentence,” Thomas recalled.
While in Conroe, Thomas says he was moved into a deportation staging area with Spanish-speaking detainees headed for Nicaragua. Confused and terrified, he tried to refuse to board any plane. “I’m not gonna do it,” he remembered thinking. “You’re not gonna kidnap me and traffic me across the lands.”
Ultimately, his deportation order was upheld by a Fifth Circuit decision, arguing that because he was not born “in the United States,” the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause did not apply to him. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, sealing his fate.
Thomas says he is completely lost. Having never lived on the island, he cannot understand Jamaican patois, has no family to turn to, and no idea how to secure housing or employment. He does not know who is funding his hotel stay, or how long it will last. “I don’t even know if it’s legal for me to be here,” he said.
His deportation is emblematic of the Trump-era immigration crackdown that swept up not only undocumented immigrants but also legal residents and those with complicated paperwork. Despite being the son of a U.S. citizen who served nearly two decades in the military, Thomas fell through the cracks of the system.
His stateless status now leaves him in a legal limbo. Under international law, stateless people often lack the right to work, travel, or even get identification documents, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and further human rights abuses.
Thomas says that after nearly a month in Kingston, Jamaica, he still feels completely adrift. Locals, he says, don’t understand his situation. Employers have no idea what to do with him, and authorities in Jamaica haven’t offered clarity. “It’s like I got kidnapped and dumped here,” he explained.
The story highlights a little-known immigration reality, “My dad served this country,” Thomas said, “but nobody cared about me in the end.”
Though Thomas tried calling the Department of Homeland Security and even the Office of the Inspector General to report what he believed was unlawful detention, the system, he says, did not listen. “It’s a life sentence, just a different prison,” he outlined.
