Aminata Seck’s attorneys are challenging a removal order they say was entered after she never received notice of an immigration hearing.
FRANKFORT, KY — Kentucky State University women’s basketball player Aminata Seck remains in federal immigration custody as her attorneys challenge a removal order issued after she missed an immigration hearing they say she did not know had been scheduled.
Seck, a 26-year-old senior from Senegal, has been held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since Aug. 7, when agents detained her at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. The Department of Homeland Security says an immigration judge ordered her removed from the United States in September 2025 after she failed to appear for a hearing. Her legal team disputes the circumstances surrounding that order and is pursuing challenges in immigration court and federal court.
Hishem Alsalman, an attorney handling Seck’s federal habeas corpus case, said Seck maintains that she never received notice of the hearing that led to the Sept. 8, 2025, removal order. Her attorneys filed a motion Aug. 18 in Memphis Immigration Court seeking to reopen the case and rescind the order. The motion remains pending, according to her legal team. Justice Department guidance says an in absentia removal order can be challenged through a motion to reopen when a person alleges that proper notice of the hearing was not received.
The dispute has also moved into federal court. Seck filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, along with an emergency application for a temporary restraining order. The case was filed Sept. 23 and assigned to Chief U.S. District Judge David J. Hale. Court records show Hale ordered federal respondents to file a response by Sept. 28, with Seck’s reply due Sept. 30.
DHS has given a different account of Seck’s immigration status. The department said she legally entered the United States on Sept. 1, 2019, but remained beyond the period she was authorized to stay. DHS said a pending immigration application or work authorization does not itself provide legal status and said Seck will remain in ICE custody while her removal case proceeds. The agency said the 2025 removal order was entered after she did not appear at her immigration hearing.
Seck’s attorneys say the missed hearing should not be treated as evidence that she knowingly ignored the immigration process. Alsalman told Front Office Sports that Seck was unaware she had been placed in removal proceedings or that an immigration judge had entered an order against her. He said she had instead been taking steps to maintain her student status while continuing her education at Kentucky State.
Questions about Seck’s health have become another part of the case. Attorney Sadiqa Reynolds has said Seck was traveling with a coach and wearing a leg brace when she was detained. Reynolds said Seck had been preparing for surgery related to a knee injury and later experienced significant pain while in custody. She also said Seck had been transferred among several detention facilities, making communication and efforts to follow her medical condition more difficult.
DHS said medical personnel noted Seck’s knee brace when she entered custody and that she was referred to a local hospital Sept. 21 for treatment of knee pain. Reynolds and other members of Seck’s legal team have raised concerns about the consistency of her medical treatment during detention. Reports about the precise nature of her leg injury have differed, with some accounts describing an ACL injury and another describing an Achilles tendon injury.
Seck was detained while traveling through the Louisville airport on a basketball-related trip to New York. She is a center for Kentucky State, a historically Black university in Frankfort, and played in the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons after transferring from Langston University. During the 2025-26 season, she earned Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference third-team honors and received the conference’s Elite 16 award recognizing academic and athletic achievement.
Kentucky State has declined to discuss the details of Seck’s immigration case, citing privacy. Her attorneys, meanwhile, are pursuing parallel efforts to challenge the removal order and her continued detention. The immediate next steps include the pending request to reopen her immigration proceedings and deadlines in her federal habeas case, where the government has been ordered to respond.
Author note: Last updated September 26, 2026.