Overview
- Ajak, who represented himself in a virtual hearing Thursday before Judge Adam G. Panopoulos, told the court he would leave the United States.
- Outlets differ on whether he accepted a government removal order or a voluntary departure, and reporting does not set a firm date for his return to Sudan.
- He has been in ICE custody since Feb. 18 and is being held at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania after an initial stay at the Batavia facility.
- The judge’s decision followed Ajak’s acknowledgment that his student visa expired after he finished his studies at Syracuse in 2023, and he said, “If this is how I’m leaving, I never want to step foot in this country again.”
- Police records show several late-2025 and early-2026 arrests in Syracuse preceded his ICE detention, and coverage notes his journey from Kenya in 2014, three seasons as a Syracuse backup center, and plans he once had to pursue graduate study.