A Kenyan illegal immigrant and former Indianapolis Colts linebacker who had been arrested multiple times was deported after overstaying his visa for a decade.
Daniel Ogama Adongo, 37, played for the Indianapolis Colts until 2015. He overstayed his visa in 2016 after his NFL career ended, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
An immigration judge issued a final order of removal on March 23, and ICE carried it out on June 20.
Adongo was arrested multiple times by Indiana law enforcement over the past nine years for crimes including felony intimidation, battery and disorderly conduct, ICE shared in a news release.
He was convicted of criminal mischief with damage in 2020 and sentenced to 364 days in jail.
Adongo was recruited as a rugby player and played for the Colts for two seasons from 2013 to 2015. Adongo became the first Kenyan to play in the NFL after the Colts signed him in 2013, NBC News reported.
The Indianapolis Star reported that court records showed Adongo had run-ins with the law during and after his time with the Colts and was at times found incompetent to stand trial.
Court records indicate that several charges, including felony intimidation, battery and disorderly conduct, were all dismissed, NBC reported.
Adongo’s lawyers said his arrests were caused by mental illness, citing a 2020 report in which a doctor who examined Adongo at the St. Joseph Regional Medical Center described him as “acutely psychotic with traumatic brain injury.”
Doctors and social workers said he suffered from an “undisclosed mental illness which is highly speculated to be Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE,” the Star reported.
ICE said Adongo’s most recent charges fell under the Laken Riley Act, which was signed by President Donald Trump last year.
The law requires the agency to detain undocumented immigrants who are arrested on suspicion of, charged with or convicted of “burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.”
“This dangerous individual was clearly a threat to the community, which is now safer since he’s been removed,” said ICE Chicago Assistant Field Office Director Douglas Thompson. “Those who violate immigration law are held equally accountable, including former professional athletes.”
ICE officials said that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security continues to deliver on President Trump’s “promise to the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, child sex abusers, gang members, and terrorists.”
Nearly 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal immigrants charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S., ICE officials said.
Other recent high-profile deportees include Tou Lue Vang, a convicted child rapist who was pardoned by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and the state’s pardon board. Vang, a Laotian national who came to the U.S. in 1994, was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct after he repeatedly assaulted a girl between 2002 and 2004.
“More than 3 million illegal aliens are out of the country and counting,” ICE officials said. “Our message is clear: If you come to our country illegally, we will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you.”
