Standing outside the Louisville Metropolitan Hall, Aminata “Amina” Seck described the eerie loneliness of being kept in isolation during her two-month detention while she renewed her student visa.
When she first approached the podium at a press conference on Oct. 7, the Kentucky State University basketball star from Senegal grabbed her own arm, self-soothing. Her first words were “Alhamdulillah,” meaning “praise be to God” in Arabic, before she thanked those advocating for her release.
Seck, 26, was released exactly two months after she was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
The detainment happened while traveling with Kentucky State’’s basketball team in August at the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport in Kentucky. Originally, Seck was held in Clark County, Indiana, but was released from the Grayson County Detention Center in Louisville, Kentucky, on Oct. 7.
Seck legally entered the country in 2019, ICE confirmed in an email to Capital B.
Previously, the graduate student’s attorneys said they believed she missed a deadline to renew her student visa status because she was having back surgery.
Sadiqa Reynolds, Seck’s attorney, said her client was kept in isolation for at least eight of her days in detention. Reynolds previously said she first spoke to Seck on Sept. 16, more than a month after she was detained. Seck and her team were told isolation was for her and other inmates’ safety.
Reynolds said Seck was arrested and denied proper care for existing injuries. Seck’s left ACL and meniscus are torn, her lawyer shared, and she did not receive consistent treatment meant for her injuries, for which she is scheduled to undergo surgery.
“In these two months the medical treatment has been hit or miss,” Reynolds said at the news conference.
During Seck’s detention, U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky visited detainees, but Seck was in isolation. Still, he made a point to visit her, which Reynolds said she believes is why her client received some medical care for her injured knee.
Two months in ICE detention with an injury
When Seck first arrived in Grayson, officers asked her to remove her leg brace, and she said she couldn’t because she couldn’t walk without it.
On Sept. 21, Seck was transported to a hospital. In a statement to ABC News, the Department of Homeland Security said the transport was due to a knee injury. But Reynolds said that isn’t true; Instead, Seck was transported for a medical emergency and DHS refused to tell her legal team which hospital she was relocated to.
Capital B reached out to ICE to confirm why Seck was transported to a hospital. In a statement, the agency did not address the specific reason for the transfer, instead writing that it is “a longstanding practice” to provide medical care for individuals in ICE custody. “This includes medical, dental, and mental health services as available, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care”
The agency added that this is the “best healthcare” that many of the individuals “have received in their lives.”
Other students detained by ICE
Seck isn’t the first international student ICE has arrested in recent months for missing a deadline.
Over the summer, Johan Sandoval, an international baseball player at Savannah State University, was arrested in New York due to an error in transferring his immigration documents between colleges. He was later released on a $20,000 bond after two weeks in detention.
Last year, NBC reported that an estimated 4,700 or more foreign-born students have been impacted since the Trump administration began revoking visas in early 2025.
Nima Kulkarni, executive director of the New Americans Initiative, said the Kentucky-based immigrant aid group has joined with the Detention Defense Fund to provide financial support for Seck and her legal team. While Reynolds had spoken on Seck’s behalf while she was in custody, Hishem Alsalman of Alsalman Law Office filed the bond motion that led to her release.
At the Oct. 7 press conference, Seck’s lawyers said she can return to Kentucky State, where she is a graduate student. While Reynolds declined to comment on the case details, she confirmed that Seck’s status is “good.”
Her next court date is set for November.
Added Seck: “I’m just ready to go back to school, get my master’s, and get this surgery done.”
