This article, authored by Mark Tanos is republished under the Creative Commons “CC BY-NC-ND” license with permission from The Daily Caller News Foundation.
A Halloween display featuring skeletons dressed as immigration agents chasing Mexican skeletons over a fence has stirred backlash outside a Mobile County sheriff’s home.
The display sits on Sheriff Paul Burch’s front lawn days before Mobile’s Latin Fest. Grace Resendez McCaffery, who heads Latino Media Gulf Coast, said she drove from Pensacola to see it for herself after photos spread online.
“It’s sad,” McCaffery told NBC 15 News. “I feel like we’ve regressed about 50 years.”
McCaffery, who also founded the Hispanic Resource Center in Northwest Florida, said the decorations could fuel “more hostility, fear and discord within the community.” Some Hispanic residents have reportedly already voiced concerns about stepped-up immigration enforcement in Mobile and Baldwin counties, where the sheriff’s office assists in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.
The sheriff told the outlet Monday that festivalgoers had nothing to fear.
Sheriff faces backlash over Halloween ICE display in his front yard. https://t.co/FsomAL4AiP pic.twitter.com/wq9gk9Ilzd
— WRDW WAGT News 12 26 (@WRDW_WAGT) October 8, 2025
“They should not,” Burch said. “We work day in and day out with Homeland Security and ICE in Mobile. I’m not aware of any operations targeting the Latin Fest.”
Burch hasn’t commented directly on the decorations, but his wife, Michelle Alfonso Burch, defended them in a statement released through an attorney Tuesday.
“Every year, I make tongue-in-cheek Halloween decorations with a topical theme at my home,” she wrote, describing this year’s setup as “playing both on my Cuban background and new, needed changes in federal immigration enforcement.”
She added that her parents were legal immigrants and that her husband “has nothing to do with these, other than mowing the grass around them.”
McCaffery rejected that defense. “Whether it’s done by another immigrant, Hispanic person, it’s still harmful,” she said.
Hispanic American Business Association of the Gulf Coast president Silva Lessa called the situation “an unfortunate distraction” but said Saturday’s event will go on as scheduled.
Based sheriff
— Manic Brainbow (@BrainbowManic) October 8, 2025
Funny AF ?
— Keith Milne (@KeithMilne91148) October 10, 2025
The hurt my feelings syndrome in full force.
— SouthernDays (@SouthernDazes) October 8, 2025
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Great Halloween display. Pathetic crybaby libs get their little feelings hurt, well that’s just too damn bad, cry is a river.
is = us
McCaffery rejected that defense. “Whether it’s done by another immigrant, Hispanic person, it’s still harmful,” she said.
Then tell the harmed and offended motherf******s to LEAVE THE COUNTRY!!!!
GO HOME IF THEY DON’T LIKE IT! THEY’RE ASKING US TO BE HERE! WE DIDN’T ASK THEM TO COME HERE and DON’T REALLY WANT THEM HERE WE’RE SICK OF THEM!
Best job to do in part time and start making more than $500 per day. (z12101) i received $16429 of my last month working. this job does not required any special skills or anything else its just cca a basic job even a child can do this…..
Here is I started……… tab on my name
Love the decorations! Hispanics brought this upon themselves so have absolutely no room to complain. Legal immigrants are supporting ICE 100% from what we see and hear.