Amidst steady snowfall, a crowd of roughly 70 local students and community members marched from the Lulu Chow Wang Campus Center to the Wellesley Town Hall on the morning of Dec. 6 to protest the recent deportation of a Babson College student.
Any Lucía López Belloza, a 19-year-old freshman studying business at Babson College, was attempting to fly home on Nov. 20 to surprise her family in Texas for Thanksgiving when she was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Boston Logan Airport. Despite a court order barring the federal government from removing López Belloza from Massachusetts, she was deported to Honduras on Nov. 22.
Among the rally’s crowd were López Belloza’s roommate and close friends from Babson. Alejandra Esquivel, a freshman at Babson and the roommate of López Belloza, recalled the moment she made contact with López Belloza following the deportation.
“After she got released, the first thing she said was ‘Everything happens for a reason.’ I believe that we’re here for that reason,” Esquivel said.
Esquivel shared that López Belloza is “okay,” and is currently living with her grandparents in a “really rural part” of Honduras.
“We want to make sure that she can come back and have a stable life, which she deserved after so much hard work she put in to get her education here,” Esquivel said.
Katherine García, another Babson freshman and a close friend of López Belloza, elaborated on why she attended the protest.
“I’m here to shine light upon her case, and in hopes also to bring her back,” García said. “[People need to] unite and speak out about these issues. It’s unconstitutional. The Trump administration can’t follow through with a simple task of following [people’s] rights, so we as a community have to come together and make sure that they … follow the law.”
The Wellesley Chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) and the Wellesley College Democrats co-coordinated the rally to express solidarity for students at other institutions, according to YDSA Co-President Abby Kubena ’26.
“It’s really important at a time like this, when it’s easy to look away to speak up and fight back,” YDSA Co-President Sanna Walker ’26 said. “That’s why we’re here. Because there’s been an attack on our community. Any attack that ICE conducts is an attack on all of us. It’s important to show up and show them that we’re not going to just let it happen.”
Don McCauley, a lawyer and resident of Wellesley, said he attended the protest to show solidarity and stand up for the rule of law.
“We have abandoned the rule of law,” he said. “We are in the police state. ICE are the current stormtroopers being trained for bigger things.”
López Belloza’s friends emphasized the necessity of protesting ICE’s actions.
“Share her story and speak up about our rights because if it starts with one person, it’s going to spread. It’s better to avoid this and use our voices to speak out and fight against this injustice,” García said.
Babson College Dean of College Life, Caitlin Capozzi, said in a statement made public on Dec. 1 that Babson’s focus “remains on supporting the student and their family, as well as the wellbeing of our community.”
“Relevant faculty and staff have been informed so they can provide appropriate academic and community support in the student’s absence,” Capozzi wrote.
Babson College has backed López Belloza, according to her friends.
“We’ve been in very close communication with the school, and they’ve been very supportive,” García said. “They’re trying to find ways to fit within a week an event to send her postcards for support and also to spread the word about the GoFundMe to help her alleviate some of her financial burdens so that she can continue her education, because it’s something that she worked hard for and deserves.”
Background + Rally
López Belloza’s parents brought her to the United States from Honduras when she was seven. In a statement from the Department of Homeland Security, spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said that an immigration judge ordered López Belloza to be deported in 2015, although her lawyer, Todd Pommerleau, said he cannot locate the initial deportation order.
Rally attendee and former Vice President of Wellesley College Government Michele Pfannenstiel ’96 explained that the recent ICE deportation situation is deeply personal to her, as she is a naturalized citizen.
“I was born in Mexico to American parents. I had to give up my Mexican citizenship to commission in the U.S. Army because you cannot be a dual citizen and be an army officer,” she said. “The changes Stephen Miller, the Trump administration and the [Republican Party] are propagating will render me stateless. I will be stripped of my citizenship. I will have no citizenship because I gave up my Mexican citizenship to serve this country.”
Katalin Brown, a 40-year resident of Wellesley who attended the rally, echoed Pfannenstiel’s sentiments. Brown was born in Hungary and came to the U.S. during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
“The way people treat immigrants and refugees is very important to me,” she said.
Brown believed that students have a responsibility to protest in the wake of López Belloza’s deportation.
“I’m frankly surprised that there wasn’t more said after [her detainment],” she said.
Still, attendees brought enthusiasm and cheer to the Saturday rally, shouting chants such as “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here” and singing protest songs like ‘This Land is your Land.’
“It’s really a testament to how much Wellesley students care: that so many people came out,” said rally attendee Liv Parsons ’29. “For me, it was especially when we heard that our fellow student at Babson was deported that I knew that we needed to take some kind of action.”
YDSA Treasurer Sinead O’Sullivan ’28 emphasized that gathering with others helps people feel “less powerless” in the current political moment.
“Right now, we’re in a very repressive time, and I think that coming together as a community is important, because we can come together and figure out ways to organize, to help the people in our communities,” she said.
Babson freshman and López Belloza’s friend Francesca Tamburini ultimately underscored the power of community engagement in the face of the mass deportations occurring across the country.
“We are saying that this is not okay, and we’re not standing for this,” Tamburini said. “If you’re not personally affected by this, at least go to your community as support, put your voice out there because the more people, the more we can spread this message.”
Contact the editor responsible for this article: Jessica Chen
