Houston Community College student Juan Manrique spent months dreaming about a 10-day study abroad trip to London with 80 of his fellow Honors College classmates.

The business major, who enrolled at HCC largely because of the promise of the annual international trip, even bought $500 tickets to attend his first Premier League soccer game while in England.

But HCC leaders canceled the trip in mid-February, leaving students miffed. Over the following weeks, college administrators offered conflicting explanations for their decision and opted instead on a four-day jaunt to San Antonio, three students said.

Now, a politically-charged reason for the cancellation has been confirmed.

In a recording obtained by the Houston Landing, HCC leaders told the Honors College students this week that they nixed the all-expenses-paid trip abroad partly due to fears about the Trump administration’s recent immigration crackdown. 

“We’ve had recent incidents where folks have legitimate visas and they’re being picked up,” an HCC administrator, whose identity couldn’t be confirmed by the Landing, told the students. “Having a trip closer to home is better, because we can get to people faster. If something goes wrong, we can get to San Antonio.”

The decision marks another result of colleges and universities nationwide scrambling to respond to a barrage of executive orders, memos and visa revocations surrounding international students. Some American colleges and universities have canceled foreign trips or advised international students and staff not to leave the country.

For HCC, the cancellation marks one of the most impactful moves made by the college in response to the Trump administration. Houston-area community colleges have not been significantly impacted by Trump’s immigration actions, his threats to withhold federal funding from higher education institutions, or his attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

In interviews, the three Honors College students — Manrique,  Bradley Michalsky and Dakota Williams — told the Landing that they understand fears about the Trump administration’s actions, but the decision to pivot to San Antonio and inconsistent communication by HCC leaders have eroded their trust in the college. While HCC covers the cost of the Honors College trip, some students spent hundreds or thousands of dollars making accommodations to travel abroad and don’t expect to get reimbursed by the college.

“I’m not from a rich family,” Manrique said. “I don’t do yearly vacations, I don’t do summer vacations. I do none of that. Some of us …  have not seen anything outside of Houston or Texas. Some of us needed that to see what we’re missing outside these walls. It kind of breaks my heart. They just stripped it from us.”

In response to questions from the Landing, HCC spokesperson Stephen Lestarjette said in statements that there is “no single cause” for canceling the London trip. Rather, the college conducted a “risk assessment” and shifted to create the “safest travel experience possible.”

“Unfortunately, after considering numerous factors, travel plans for Honors College were changed,” Lestarjette said. “The new location was determined based on time constraints, student academic schedules, and an evaluation of travel risks.”

Months of mixed messages

HCC’s Honors College prominently features the international trip experience on its website, and multiple students said the chance to travel abroad is the reason they chose HCC over other colleges. To take the trip, students must maintain a 3.2 GPA while taking at least 12 credits per semester, complete community service, participate in campus cultural events and finish a humanities course tailored to their destination.

“Everybody had to work their butts off (for this),” said Michalsky, a business and accounting major and Honors College student. “It’s all these requirements that you have to stay within the college, and this (trip) is the big, big driving factor.”

Ahead of this year’s trip to London, students made sometimes complicated and expensive preparations. Astou Sene, an international student from Senegal, said she paid over $2,000 to travel back home to obtain proper visa documentation for traveling to England. Williams, who has a heart condition that can make her feel dizzy, spent months securing proper accommodations for her travel and activities, on top of buying her passport. 

But at the end of January, HCC leaders unexpectedly canceled the trip. The three students said administrators told them in a meeting that Trump’s flurry of executive orders stoked fears about students traveling out of the country.

Several weeks later, the students said, HCC leaders walked that back in another meeting and offered a different reason for the reversal: the State Department placing a Level 2 travel advisory on London. The advisory urges travelers to “exercise increased caution” while abroad.

The explanation raised students’ eyebrows because the federal government issued the Level 2 advisory in September 2024, more than a month before HCC administrators chose London as their destination. The three students told the Landing that their Honor College directors told them that the college wouldn’t permit any travel over the next four years.

Several students then attended and spoke at a mid-February HCC board meeting to demand answers and plans for an alternative trip. The students also recounted the different explanations they said HCC administrators gave them for the cancellation — comments the college’s student newspaper, The Egalitarian, published online.

Two days later, two HCC administrators released a statement to the media disputing some of the published claims. The administrators listed their titles, but not their names.

“Travel remains an option across the district provided that proper procedures are followed,” the statement read. “Reports that all student travel has been curtailed for four years are incorrect.”

Several days later, the three Honors College students met with HCC Chancellor Margaret Ford Fisher. Her team told them to make a list of five domestic travel destinations they would enjoy, the students said. The students opted for locations they thought could offer a taste of different cultures: Hawaii, New York, South Padre Island.

On Tuesday, Manrique, Michalsky and Williams attended a meeting where HCC administrators broke the news: It was San Antonio — which was not on their list of suggested locations — or nothing. One of the unnamed administrators made the comment about the immigration and visa fears during the meeting.

“It’s just been a string-along,” Williams said. 

HCC administrators did not dispute the students’ accounts in response to questions from the Landing.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we temporarily suspended travel arrangements to complete a risk assessment and develop a procedure that allows a risk review earlier in the process,” Lestarjette said in a statement. “We understand how disappointing the changes have been for our students and expect that the new student travel process will avoid similar issues in the future.”

Settling for San Antonio 

As Honors College students processed the news, the consensus was clear. While San Antonio boasts the Alamo, puffy tacos and the River Walk, they were overwhelmingly disappointed by the pick.

“We had to tell the (other students) that they were getting a bag of chips when they thought they were getting caviar,” said Manrique, who called it an “F-tier” trip. “We can go there ourselves on a weekend.”

Honors College students will now turn to crafting their mid-May trip — and how they’ll make it educational. When the students asked in the meeting what the trip would look like, officials offered that they could visit museums, the Alamo and other missions, and take free time to explore, according to the recording. HCC administrators said they’ll plan a meeting to build a travel itinerary. 

Still, students want the college to reimburse students like Sene who absorbed large costs in preparation for the trip. In the Tuesday meeting, an unnamed administrator said “there probably will not be reimbursement.” 

“She chose to do that,” the administrator said. “I realized she probably felt she had no choice, but it was a private decision.”

Lestarjette said in a statement Thursday that HCC is reviewing “non-public funded means” to potentially do so.

Williams said the students also want “an apology, at the very least,” for the “convoluted” situation.

“HCC has always been a special place to me,” Manrique said. “But my opinion has changed a lot.”

Miranda Dunlap covers Houston’s community colleges in partnership with Open Campus. Despite roughly half of Houston’s higher-education students attending community colleges, there hasn’t been much news covering these systems or students — until now. Her reporting holds institutions accountable, highlights barriers faced by students and helps them navigate their opportunities. Reach Miranda at miranda@houstonlanding.org or on Twitter and Instagram.

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