Daniel Ogama Adongo, 37, a former Indianapolis Colts linebacker from Kenya, was removed from the country on June 20 after ICE said he overstayed a visa in 2016, the year after his NFL career ended. An immigration judge had ordered his removal in late March.
Background
Adongo, a former rugby player, became the first Kenyan to play in the NFL after the Colts signed him in 2013. However, his time in the NFL was marked by run-ins with the law, including a conviction of criminal mischief with damage, a misdemeanor, in 2020. He was sentenced to 364 days in jail and ultimately served six months in county jail.
ICE said Adongo’s most recent charges fell under the Laken Riley Act, which requires the agency to detain illegal immigrants who are arrested on suspicion of, charged with or convicted of “burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.” Critics of the law have said it strips away due process for immigrants accused — but not convicted of — certain crimes.
Adongo’s lawyers had previously attributed his arrests to mental illness, citing a 2020 report in which a doctor described him as “acutely psychotic with traumatic brain injury.” A mental health social worker who treated Adongo for years wrote that he suffered from an “undisclosed mental illness which is highly speculated to be Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE,” a brain condition caused by repeated head injuries.
Original reporting: Dallas TX News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
