ICE-themed Halloween display at sheriff’s home sparks backlash
By Riley Conlon
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MOBILE, Alabama (WVTM) — Halloween decorations set up at the home of Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch have drawn criticism from residents, showing skeletons dressed as ICE agents chasing more skeletons dressed in sombreros and ponchos over a fence.
Grace Rensendez McCaffery, who owns Latino Media Gulf Coast, drove more than 70 miles from Pensacola, Florida, to view it, calling the display sad and saying it felt like a major step back.
She described the display to Mobile NBC affiliate WPMI as “depictions of what I assume are meant to be Mexicans like myself on the fence.”
McCaffery, founder of the Hispanic Resource Center in Northwest Florida, warned the display could “create more hostility, fear and discord within the community in general.”
The uproar comes just days before the city’s Latin Fest, amid worries among some local Hispanic community members about heightened immigration enforcement in Mobile and Baldwin counties.
Sheriff Burch addressed those fears, saying his office works regularly with Homeland Security and ICE, but he knew of no operations aimed at Latin Fest.
“They are targeting individuals with criminal backgrounds,” said Burch. “Occasionally, there are collateral individuals who just happen to be there when they arrest the person they’re targeting. But I’m not aware of any operations targeting the festival or anything surrounding the festival.”
While Burch hasn’t publicly commented on the display, his wife, Michelle Alfonso Burch, issued a statement through an attorney:
“Every year I make tongue-in-cheek Halloween decorations with a topical theme at my home. I like decorating for Halloween and other holidays and rotate these decorations periodically. My husband has nothing to do with these other than mowing the grass around them. I made this one playing both on my Cuban background and new, needed changes in federal immigration enforcement. My parents were legal immigrants, and I have plenty of immigrants throughout my family. I’ll make a new one shortly. We have no shortage of topics to cover.”
“Whether it’s done by another immigrant or Hispanic person, it’s still harmful because it causes division and separation one community from another,” McCaffrey said.
Despite the controversy, Latin Fest organizers met downtown to finalize Saturday’s event, including Silvia Lessa of the Hispanic American Business Association of the Gulf Coast.
“This event is to empower our community to make our community accept each other and make sure that we live life,” Lessa said. “How can we live life if we are in fear? So I’ll say everybody come enjoy, live life to the fullest because the moment is here today, not tomorrow.”
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