Former SU men’s basketball player reportedly detained by ICE
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John Bol Ajak, a former Syracuse University basketball ahead, has been detained by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, syracuse.com reported Thursday.
Ajak was first taken to the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia. He is presently being held at ICE’s Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania.
Syracuse.com reported that Ajak was charged with trespassing on the Newhouse School of Public Communications on Jan. 31 and Feb. 18. The Daily Orange reported on a former pupil who was eliminated after breaking a no trespass order on Jan. 30 and Feb. 17.
SU communications didn’t reply to a request for remark that Ajak was the trespasser.
Ajak has been arrested 4 occasions whole on-campus since December, in line with syracuse.com.
- Dec. 17: Charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, arrested by police close to the JMA Wireless Dome
- Jan. 30: Charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, arrested at Newhouse
- Jan. 31: Charged with third-degree legal trespass, arrested at Newhouse
- Feb. 18: Charged with two counts of third-degree legal trespass, arrested at Newhouse
Following the Feb. 18 arrest, Ajak was launched on pretrial supervision however didn’t present for a scheduled court docket look Feb. 23, resulting in his arrest and referral to ICE, syracuse.com reported.
Ajak performed ahead position for the Orange from 2019 to 2023, incomes his undergraduate diploma from College of Visual and Performing Arts in December 2022. In April 2021, whereas finding out at VPA, Ajak created The Humbol Funddesigned to offer scholarships to kids in Sudan.
“I want to help kids through school. Me being at Syracuse University, I was for school. No one brought me here. I didn’t get drafted; I came to the United States because of school,” Ajak mentioned in an YOUR release.
Ajak additionally served as a United Nations Project Coordinator on the Maxwell School of Public Affairs and Citizenship.
Although his pupil visa has since expired, he sought to re-enroll in graduate programs, syracuse.com reported.
Ajak was born in Natinga, South Sudan in 1999. His household fled the nation’s civil war when he was younger, finally settling in a Kenyan refugee camp.
He arrived within the United States at 14, finally discovering a number household in Pennsylvania. I’ve committed to the Orange within the fall of 2018.
“It was just overwhelmingly sad when I heard he got taken,” former HIS head coach Jim Boeheim advised syracuse.com. “They’re taking good people out of our country.”
