Jermaine Thomas, who was born on a U.S. military base in Germany, was recently deported from Texas to Jamaica, according to the Austin Chronicle, after claims of not having a U.S. citizenship.
Thomas, who was transported from his home in Killeen, Texas, to Kingston, Jamaica, in May, was born in 1986 in Germany. This is where his father, originally from Jamaica, was stationed as an active-duty military member of the United States Army.
He spent his childhood moving to different bases for his father’s work, along with his mother, who is originally from Kenya. After his parents divorced when Thomas was 11 years old, he went to live with his recently retired father in Florida. He then made his way to Texas after his father passed due to kidney failure in 2010.
Thomas told The Chronicle that he has mostly been homeless and in and out of jail in Texas. He’s devasted by his situation.
“I’m looking out the window on the plane,” Thomas told the outlet, “and I’m hoping the plane crashes and I die.”
Thomas’ unique situation was first brought up in 2015, after a court case questioning his citizenship status went to the Supreme Court. At the time, the justices upheld a decision that Thomas is not a U.S. citizen since his father was not yet living on U.S. soil long enough to be a naturalized citizen at the time of Thomas’ birth.
He remained in Texas, living stateless, not having German, U.S. or Jamaican papers, though that changed recently when Thomas was arrested by ICE agents outside the apartment he had been forced to leave.
“(ICE agents) keep explaining to me that I’m being detained in suspended custody, in detention, but if I don’t have a release day and I don’t get to see a judge, that’s pretty much a life sentence,” said Thomas.
Spending about two and a half months in an ICE detention center north of Houston, Thomas is now living in a hotel in Kingston and is unsure of whether the U.S. or Jamaican government is paying for it. He told The Chronicle does not know how or if it is legal for him to find a job in the country.
“If you’re in the U.S. Army, and the Army deploys you somewhere, and you’ve gotta have your child over there, and your child makes a mistake after you pass away, and you put your life on the line for this country, are you going to be okay with them just kicking your child out of the country?” Thomas said, in a phone interview with the Austin Chronicle. “It was just Memorial Day. Y’all are disrespecting his service and his legacy.”
