First Kenyan-born NFL player deported, ICE says

A former Indianapolis Colts linebacker from Kenya was deported by ICE last month, the agency said in a statement Saturday, citing an overstayed visa and a history of arrests. Daniel Ogama Adongo, 37, 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. Attorneys 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 the Colts signed him 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 attorney and others have raised the possibility that he sustained a traumatic brain injury during his football and rugby careers. 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 ordered to serve six months in county jail. The agency said he also faced charges — including felony intimidation, battery and disorderly conduct — that did not result in conviction. Court records show those charges were all dismissed. ICE said Adongo’s most recent charges fell under the Laken Riley Act, which requires the agency to detain undocumented 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. ICE did not specify which charges fell under the act. “This dangerous individual was clearly a threat to the community, which is now safer since he’s been removed,” ICE Chicago Assistant Field Office Director Douglas Thompson said in the statement. “Those who violate immigration law are held equally accountable, including former professional athletes.” Adongo’s lawyers had 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 the St. Joseph Regional Medical Center 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,” the Star reported. CTE is a brain condition caused by repeated head injuries, typically sustained over many years. It cannot be diagnosed in a living patient — only through an autopsy. About one-third of former NFL players suspect they have the disease, according to a 2024 survey. The NFL first acknowledged the link between CTE and football in 2016. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the questions Adongo’s family and attorneys have raised about his mental state and possible brain injury.