A former rugby star who became the first Kenyan to play in the NFL, was deported in June for a visa overstay and multiple arrests, according to federal immigration authorities.
Daniel Adongo, 37, spent two seasons as a linebacker for the Indianapolis Colts, playing twice, and was cut in 2015 after facing domestic violence allegations. His visa expired in 2016, but he remained in the US, a press statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said.
“This dangerous individual was clearly a threat to the community, which is now safer since he’s been removed,” said a statement attributed to Douglas Thompson, ICE Chicago’s assistant field office director.
“Those who violate immigration law are held equally accountable, including former professional athletes.”
Adongo’s deportation in June, following the signing of a removal order by a federal judge in March, is the latest high-profile case in the campaign of mass expulsions of undocumented people that Donald Trump has pursued through his second presidency.
According to the ICE statement, he was arrested multiple times in Indiana over the previous nine years “for crimes including felony intimidation, battery and disorderly conduct”. The statement did not address why he was not deported for the visa overstay.
The agency cited a criminal mischief with damage conviction in 2020, for which he was sentenced to a year in jail. A report in the Indianapolis Star in December 2015 said police responded twice in three months to domestic violence calls to his home, which immediately preceded the Colts’ decision to let him go.
Supporters of the player, however, say his only conviction was a misdemeanor – and that the charges that led to his most recent arrest were dismissed.
Additionally, they maintain Adongo spent months in harsh conditions in immigration detention, during which they say his serious mental illness worsened.
“Doctors and social workers who worked with him believe he may also be living with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE – an untreatable brain disease caused by repeated head impacts, common among athletes who played contact sports,” a statement accompanying a petition that had tried to prevent his deportation said.
ICE, it said, never confirmed whether Adongo received mental health treatment during his incarceration. “This is not justice,” the petition said. “He needed a doctor, not a cell.”
Born in Nairobi in 1989, Adongo played professional rugby union in South Africa before moving to the US in 2013 when he was signed by the Colts as an outside linebacker with no football experience. He played in two games before suffering a series of injury setbacks.
The player’s father, Joe Adongo, spoke in 2020 of the mental challenges his son was experiencing after video appeared on social media of him looking dishevelled and with multiple nasal piercings.
The ICE statement said Adonga had faced criminal charges filed under the Laken Riley Act, named for a murdered Georgia nursing student, which requires the detention without bond for undocumented immigrants accused of certain crimes.
