James was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They received a Bachelor of the Arts degrees from Coe College in Spanish and Psychology. During this time, James took coursework in Gender Studies, Child Psychology, and Language and Community Engagement. After graduating, James moved back to Minnesota and performed a year of service with First Nations Kitchen, an indigenous community meal and produce giveaway in South Minneapolis.

In the second half of their undergraduate degree, James realized that pursuing a psychology career was not their dream. After their year of service, James enrolled at the University of Minnesota Law School and focused on Immigration Law. They volunteered for two years on the Asylum Law Project Student Board, was a student attorney and director for the Detainee Rights Clinic at UMN, and took nearly every immigration course UMN offered.

James first joined the Immigration Project as a legal intern the summer of 2022 and continued to volunteer remotely while attending law school. After graduating with a J.D. in May 2023, James came back to the Immigration Project as an Immigrant Justice Corps Attorney Fellow with the Unaccompanied Children’s program. Now they are a Senior Staff Attorney for our Community Legal Access Clinics working to give quality legal support to people applying for immigration status on their own.