A former Indianapolis Colts linebacker from Kenya was deported by ICE last month, according to the agency. said in a statement on Saturday, citing an overstay visa and a history of arrests.
Daniel Ogama Adongo, 37, was deported from the country on June 20 after ICE said he overstayed his visa in 2016, the year after his NFL career ended. An immigration judge ordered his removal at the end of March.
Lawyers who previously represented Adongo did not immediately respond to requests for comment. NBC News was unable to contact Adongo or determine his current legal representatives for comment.
Adongo, a former rugby player, became the first Kenyan to play in the NFL after signing by the Colts in 2013.
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. His lawyer and others have raised the possibility that he suffered head trauma during his football and rugby career.
ICE said Adongo was convicted of criminal mischief with damage, a misdemeanor, in 2020 and sentenced to 364 days in jail; court records show that, with credit for time served, he was ultimately sentenced to serve six months in the county jail. The agency said he also faced charges — including criminal intimidation, battery and disorderly conduct — that did not result in a conviction. Court records show those charges were all dismissed.
ICE said the most recent charges against Adongo fell under Laken Riley Lawwhich requires the agency to detain undocumented immigrants who are arrested on suspicion of, accused of, or convicted of “burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.” Critics of the law said it removed due process for immigrants accused — but not convicted — of certain crimes. ICE did not specify which charges fell under the law.
“This dangerous individual clearly posed a threat to the community, which is now safer since he was deported,” Douglas Thompson, deputy director of the ICE Chicago Field Office, said in the release. “Those who violate immigration law are held equally accountable, including former professional athletes. »
Adongo’s lawyers previously attributed his arrests to mental illness, according to the Indianapolis Star. His defense attorney cited a 2020 report in which a doctor who examined Adongo at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center described him as “extremely psychotic with head trauma.”
A mental health social worker who treated Adongo for years wrote that he suffered from an “undisclosed mental illness believed to be chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE,” the Star reported.
CTE is a brain disease caused by repeated injuries to the head, usually sustained over many years. It cannot be diagnosed in a living patient, but only by autopsy. About a third of former NFL players suspect they have the disease, according to a 2024 survey. The NFL first recognized the link between CTE and football in 2016.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on questions raised by Adongo’s family and attorneys regarding his mental state and possible brain damage.
