NECC students dig deep into how politics touches their lives. The topic for debate this week at NECC’s Global Politics Club was kept simple: current events.

In 2025, nothing is ever simple.

The topics up for discussion range from extraterrestrials to immigration, from the New York City Mamdani-win to good ole-fashioned, home-grown misogyny. 

Keelin Russell, a student at NECC, speaks about the stark difference seen at home across lines of gender.

Russell leads the group on the topic of misogyny, while group president Melissa Ferris raises interesting questions of why these social issues are so important to newer generations. Thestudents mull this question over for a while, as the conversation leads back to accessibility to higher education, unavailable to generations of women before them.

“A lot of women now, especially coming out of that generation, they want to do better,” says Russell.

Russell’s mother is a nurse at the hospital where Russell also works. She says the difference in behavior comes down to a role model issue.

“You raise your women to be more well mannered,” she said. 

The discussion touches on the effect of radicalizing the next generation of misogynists.

Social media influencers online, for example, have the potential to reach billions of screens, regardless of how politically correct what they have to say is. Sometimes, women — a vulnerable minority making up approximately one half of the world’s population — become an easy target.

“It’s very easy to put the blame on someone else, and women are very easy to blame,”Russell said.

Of course, misogyny is not the only dish on the menu.  The topic of immigration also touches close to home for many of the students at NECC. 

One source, who requested to remain anonymous, fleshed out in detail the semantics revolving around the now-rescinded three-year extension by the Biden administration for expiring green cards.

A green card is an official document issued to immigrants by the United States to signify their official permanent residence in the country. 

A green card makes an immigrant a lawful, permanent resident.

The Biden administration previously issued a three-year-extension for green card renewals, which has now been rescinded by the Trump administration. The current waiting period for a renewed permanent residency card is approximately 26 months, the anonymous source said.

The anonymous source explained how this muddies the water for international travel. Permanent residents everywhere face the same problem: leave the United States with no valid visa to permit reentry. This creates a problem for those interested in visiting family for the holiday season. 

Not only could a permanent resident lose their job, their home, their education opportunities, but their family as well. For families with different passports 

from different countries, parents face another risk of separation from their spouse and children.

“It’s hard to see how that effects people in your own personal communities,” the anonymous source said.

They also explained how they feel disenfranchised from their constitutional right to free speech.

“If I were to engage in any kind of activism, that could spiral into an investigation in my family,” they said.

For group goers, the discussion was sobering.

“Hearing about this from a person [of color], it’s very real,” Dez Kelly, Liberal Arts major said.

NECC’s Global Politics Club meets at the Haverhill Commons, room 201 in the Spurk building on the Haverhill campus, at 1:45 p.m. every Wednesday.