Immigration and Customs Enforcement has removed former Indianapolis Colts linebacker Daniel Ogama Adongo from the United States, closing out a saga that stretched across nearly a decade of arrests, a criminal conviction, and a visa the Kenyan native let expire years ago.
Adongo overstayed his visa back in 2016 and, under the Laken Riley Act signed into law by President Trump, was required to be detained without bond after being convicted of certain crimes. He is exactly the kind of case the law was designed to address.
A Department of Justice immigration judge ordered Adongo’s removal on March 23, and ICE carried out the deportation on June 20. The removal was announced publicly by ICE Chicago last week.
Adongo’s rap sheet includes felony intimidation, battery, and disorderly conduct. He was convicted of criminal mischief with damage in 2020 and sentenced to 364 days in jail.
Adongo was arrested multiple times by Indiana law enforcement over the past nine years. This was not a single lapse in judgment. It was a pattern of behavior that stretched across roughly a decade.
ICE Chicago Assistant Field Office Director Douglas Thompson did not mince words when announcing the removal. “This dangerous individual was clearly a threat to the community, which is now safer since he’s been removed,” Thompson said, adding that former professional athletes are held to the same standard as anyone else under immigration law.
Adongo’s path to American football fame was unusual from the start. He was originally recruited to the United States as a rugby player before making the improbable jump to the NFL, signing with the Colts and appearing on the roster from 2013 through 2015.
His time with the Colts ended abruptly in December 2015 when the team waived him following a domestic violence investigation. Police had been called to a home in suburban Indianapolis after a woman texted a friend saying she needed help, though no charges were filed in that incident.
That was hardly the last brush with law enforcement. Over the following years, Adongo racked up additional arrests that eventually caught up with him under the tougher immigration enforcement standards of the current administration.
The Laken Riley Act, the law that ultimately sealed Adongo’s fate, was born out of tragedy. It was named after a University of Georgia nursing student murdered by an illegal immigrant who had previously been cited for shoplifting on campus, a case that became a rallying point for stricter immigration enforcement.
President Trump signed the bill into law last year, delivering on a campaign promise to close the kind of loopholes that allowed dangerous individuals with criminal histories to remain in the country indefinitely while their cases wound through the courts.
Nearly 70 percent of ICE arrests involve illegal aliens who have been charged with or convicted of a crime in the United States. Adongo is simply the latest, and most recognizable, name added to that tally.
More than 3 million illegal aliens have left the country since the administration ramped up enforcement, with the number continuing to climb. The message to those still in the country illegally, particularly those with criminal records, has been blunt. Come here illegally, and expect to be found, arrested, and deported.
Adongo’s brief NFL career, five games mostly on special teams, means most casual football fans likely have no memory of him on the field. His deportation, however, has generated far more headlines than his playing days ever did.
For immigration hawks, the case is a textbook example of why laws like Laken Riley matter. A visa overstay combined with a lengthy criminal history is precisely the profile the legislation was written to target, regardless of a person’s fame or athletic pedigree.
