U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had twice tried to deport a Ugandan refugee because of drug and firearm convictions before he was shot and killed this week by El Cajon police, authorities said Thursday.

Alfred Olango, 38, of El Cajon was convicted of transporting and selling narcotics and ordered in 2002 by an immigration judge to be deported, according to an ICE statement.

Immigration officials said they tried unsuccessfully multiple times to obtain travel documents from the Ugandan government so he could be deported.

Unable to send him back to his native country, ICE officials released Olango in 2003. He was placed under supervision due to a Supreme Court ruling that forbids the detention of foreign nationals with final deportation orders for more than six months if they cannot be deported “within the reasonably foreseeable future.”

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