Bunker Hill cancels study abroad programs amid immigration crackdown
Local News
National immigration policy and the possibility of new travel restrictions led to the decision, a Bunker Hill Community College spokesperson said.
Bunker Hill Community College is canceling its 2025 study abroad programs, redirecting them to American locations. BHCC cited the Trump administration’s immigration policies when explaining the decision.
“Our first priority in any Study Abroad experience is the safety of our students and staff. With the changes in national immigration policy and enforcement that have emerged over the last several weeks, including the prospect of renewed travel restrictions, the College will redirect this year’s exploration and learning to U.S.-based sites. We hope to resume our Study Abroad programs as soon as possible,” BHCC spokesperson Brendan Hughes said in a statement.
The move comes as Trump and his allies crack down harder on immigrants, even those who were legal residents. Mahmoud Khalil, an activist at Columbia University, was taken from his student apartment building by federal agents and flown to a detention center in Louisiana. Khalil’s green card was revoked, and he has not been charged with any crime. The journalism school’s dean, Jelani Cobb, told students that Columbia could not protect visa-holding students from potential arrest and deportation.
Rasha Alawieh, a visa-holding kidney transplant specialist at Brown Medicine in Rhode Island, was deported to Lebanon recently. In the aftermath, Brown University officials suggested that international community members, including visa holders and permanent residents, postpone their travel abroad.
Trump invoked an obscure law from 1798 in order to deport purported members of a Venezuelan gang to a mega-prison in El Salvador notorious for its harsh conditions. El Salvador’s leader, the self-described “coolest dictator in the world,” even used social media to taunt a judge who ordered those flights to return to the U.S. That situation appears primed to escalate Trump’s showdown with the judiciary, further increasing the risk of a constitutional crisis.
The wider impact on colleges in Massachusetts is unclear. BHCC planned to lead study abroad programs in Costa Rica, Ghana, Japan, Panama, and Kenya this spring and summer. The programs are one-to-two-week experiences led by faculty members that allows students to “explore the environment, culture, history, and contemporary scholarship of their destination country.”
BHCC had 724 international students last semester hailing from 94 different countries, according to the school’s website. The Trump administration is reportedly considering a travel ban that would affect people from 41 countries. People from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen would be flatly prohibited from entering the U.S.
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