Daniel Adongo, who broke ground as the first Kenyan to play in the National Football League, was deported in June following a visa overstay and a string of arrests spanning nearly a decade, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The 37-year-old linebacker played two games for the Indianapolis Colts before the team cut him in 2015 after domestic violence allegations surfaced. His visa had expired in 2016, yet he remained in the country illegally for years afterward.
A federal judge signed the removal order in March, and Adongo was expelled two months later as part of the Trump administration's broader deportation campaign targeting undocumented immigrants.
ICE cited multiple arrests in Indiana over nine years, alleging charges including felony intimidation, battery, and disorderly conduct. The agency pointed to a 2020 criminal mischief conviction that resulted in a year-long jail sentence. Police records from December 2015 documented two domestic violence calls to his residence within three months, the Indianapolis Star reported at the time.
Douglas Thompson, an assistant field office director for ICE Chicago, declared in a statement that Adongo was "clearly a threat to the community, which is now safer since he's been removed." He added that professional athletes face the same accountability as anyone else for violating immigration law.
Supporters paint a starkly different picture. They contend that Adongo's only conviction was a misdemeanor, while charges from his final arrest were dismissed. They also argue he endured months of harsh conditions in immigration detention, during which his mental health deteriorated significantly.
A petition launched to prevent his deportation claimed that doctors and social workers who treated Adongo believe he may suffer from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative brain injury common among athletes in contact sports. Supporters said there was no confirmation that ICE provided mental health treatment during his detention.
"This is not justice," the petition stated. "He needed a doctor, not a cell."
Adongo was born in Nairobi in 1989 and played professional rugby union in South Africa before signing with the Colts in 2013 as an outside linebacker despite having no American football experience. After injuries sidelined his professional career, his life deteriorated. His father spoke publicly in 2020 about his son's mental health struggles after a video circulated on social media showing Adongo in disheveled condition with multiple nasal piercings.
The case unfolded under the Laken Riley Act, legislation named after a murdered Georgia nursing student that mandates detention without bond for undocumented immigrants facing certain criminal charges.
Author James Rodriguez: "The contrast between what ICE calls a threat and what family and supporters say is a man in crisis raises hard questions about whether immigration enforcement and mental health care can ever coexist in the same system."
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