Oct. 1, 2026Up to date Oct. 2, 2026, 12:54 a.m. ET
Aminata Seck, a ladies’s basketball participant for Kentucky State College who’s from Senegal, stays in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, however may have her immigration case reopened.
Memphis Immigration Courtroom Choose Kelly Lake granted a movement on Wednesday, Sept. 30, to reopen Seck’s immigration proceedings. In granting the movement, the decide discovered that Seck had demonstrated that she didn’t obtain the discover of elimination that the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) stated it served on Sept. 8, 2025.
Seck stays in ICE custody, her lawyer Hishem Alsalman instructed USA TODAY Sports activities on Thursday, Oct. 1. Alsalman stated that Seck is presently being held on the Grayson County Detention Middle in Leitchfield, Kentucky, and is in solitary confinement as a result of officers on the jail have “safety considerations” along with her knee brace getting used as a weapon.
“She by no means did something mistaken,” Alsalman instructed USA TODAY Sports activities. “Her being in custody actually hasn’t been good for her in any respect. She must have ACL surgical procedure sooner somewhat than later.”
Seck, 26, was detained by ICE on Aug. 7 on the Louisville Muhammad Ali Worldwide Airport earlier than she was set to journey with Kentucky State’s ladies’s basketball group to New York. Alsalman, a Louisville-based immigration lawyer, has been working with Seck for about two weeks and speaking along with her via one other lawyer, Sadiqa Reynolds.
The ruling by the decide in Memphis paves the best way for Seck to current her case via the immigration course of, and her petition for a writ of habeas corpus stays pending in federal court docket within the Western District of Kentucky. Seck’s look in immigration court docket is about for Nov. 20.
Alsalman stated his subsequent steps embrace submitting a movement for a bond listening to.
“This ruling is a vital step, however Aminata stays in ICE custody,” Alsalman stated in a press release. “She has now been detained for almost two months regardless of having no legal historical past, vital household and group ties in america, and a report of pursuing her schooling and constructing her life right here. Throughout that detention, she has additionally skilled severe medical points, together with seizures that required hospitalization.
“We’re hopeful that, significantly in mild of the immigration court docket’s choice to reopen her proceedings and rescind the prior elimination order, Aminata will quickly be capable to return to her household, her schooling and her group whereas her immigration case proceeds.”
Kentucky State ladies’s basketball participant has been detained by ICE since August
Seck has now been detained by ICE for 55 days. In response to Reynolds, Seck was coping with an ACL damage and sporting a brace on her leg earlier than she was taken into ICE custody, and had problem gaining access to primary medical care corresponding to ice for her knee. On Sept. 23, DHS stated in a press release to USA TODAY Sports activities that Seck was “referred to the native hospital, the place she is receiving remedy for knee ache.”
Regardless of not displaying up within the database in the course of the first a number of weeks of her detainment, Seck is now listed in ICE’s on-line detainee locator system.
In a press release offered to USA TODAY Sports activities on Sept. 23, DHS stated Seck legally entered the nation on Sept. 1, 2019, via Los Angeles on a brief foundation.
“She selected to overstay her welcome in violation of our nation’s legal guidelines,” DHS stated. “To be clear: a pending software or work authorization doesn’t confer authorized standing in america. … Being in detention is a alternative.”
Reynolds beforehand instructed USA TODAY Sports activities Seck has been moved at the least 4 instances and has been detained in Kentucky’s Clay, Clark and Grayson counties and has additionally been held at a facility in Chicago. DHS didn’t reply to a query particularly asking why Seck had been moved so many instances.
DHS additionally didn’t reply to a query asking when and the way Seck was notified of her elimination order.
In a press release offered to USA TODAY Sports activities final week, Rep. Morgan McGarvey – a Democrat representing Kentucky’s third Congressional District – stated his workplace is monitoring Seck’s scenario.
“Aminata is a student-athlete who was arrested by ICE on the airport whereas touring along with her teammates,” McGarvey stated. “The Trump Administration’s cruelty is aware of no bounds, however we are going to by no means let this turn out to be regular and we received’t cease combating for her.”
The NCAA nonetheless has not responded to a request for remark.
Who’s Aminata Seck?
Seck, who’s listed as a senior on Kentucky State’s roster, began 20 of 26 video games for the Thorobreds final season and was named third-team All-SIAC after averaging 11.7 factors, 7.3 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per sport. She scored a season-high 30 factors towards Lane Faculty on Jan. 14 and grabbed a season-best 16 rebounds towards Clark-Atlanta College on Feb. 23.
Moreover, Seck was named a recipient of the SIAC’s Elite 16 award, the convention’s highest tutorial achievement honor for student-athletes who exhibit exemplary efficiency in athletics and the classroom.
The 6-foot-4 ahead beforehand performed at Langston College, Central Baptist Faculty and Northwest Kansas Technical Faculty. Kentucky State, positioned in Frankfort, Kentucky, is a traditionally Black school which performs its sports activities on the Division II degree of the NCAA.
In 2025, 264 worldwide gamers competed in March Insanity for males’s and ladies’s basketball, amounting to about 15% of all gamers, in response to the NCAA. Since 2010, the variety of worldwide gamers in males’s and ladies’s school basketball has elevated by 175%.
ICE arrests in Kentucky have elevated by almost 70% this yr, in response to a knowledge evaluation by the Louisville Courier-Journal, a part of the USA TODAY Community.
