Pictures: May Day rally against ICE outside Orange County Jail
People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) Participants of the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail line up to walk to the podium, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel) Bishop William Cavins, pastor of Abiding Presence Faith Community, speaks during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) Participants of the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail chant on their way to the podium, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) Labor leader and member of the Central Florida Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) Ericka Gómez-Tejada speaks during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) Participants of the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail line up to walk to the podium, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) Labor leader and member of the Central Florida Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) Ericka Gómez-Tejada speaks during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) Participants of the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail line up to walk to the podium, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) Sister Ann Kendrick holds a sign while chanting during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) Labor leader and member of the Central Florida Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) Ericka Gómez-Tejada speaks during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet, Executive Director of the HOPE CommUnity Center, speaks during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) A passenger pulls out a sign as they drive past the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel) Show Caption1 of 33People hold signs during the May Day rally outside the Orange County Jail, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)Expand
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There's Growing Anger Over Mexican Flags Flown At LA Protests. Here's What Everyone Is Getting Wrong.
As protests broke out in downtown Los Angeles in response to ICE raids and the Trump administration's immigration policies, a number of protesters held up Mexican flags. Some brandished them with U.S. flags. Others waved only Mexican flags. In a city as diverse and Latino as LA ― approximately 48.6% of the city is Hispanic or Latino ― Mexican flags have long been a fixture at protests and celebrations: May Day marches, previous protests of ICE policies, Dodgers World Series championships parades. But for national audiences watching the protests, the sheer number of Mexican flags on display proved divisive: For every headline that read 'Mexican flag symbolizes pride in Los Angeles protests' there were at least double that criticized the flag's presence over the weekend. 'How Mexican Flag Photos Are a Gift to Donald Trump,' politics reporter Dan Gooding wrote in Newsweek, while right-leaning tabloid the New York Post deemed the footage and photos as 'the perfect propaganda footage for Trump.' By Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was alluding to the flags in his testimony to a House panel. Though he couldn't identify what legal authority President Donald Trump had to deploy the National Guard and Marines to LA, he said troops need to be called in 'if you've got millions of illegals and you don't know where they're coming from, they're waving flags from foreign countries and assaulting police officers and laws.' Even centrists and those on the left had conflicted feelings about the flags. So did Kevin M. Kruse, a history professor at Princeton University and the author of 'White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism.' 'Look, protesters can wave whatever they want, but as someone who's written about protests like this, I'd politely suggest if you're trying to dispel racist claims that you're an army from a foreign country, maybe *don't* wave a foreign country's flag as you square off against US troops?' he wrote on social media. Kruse noted that both Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement and Cesar Chavez during the '1,000 Mile March' for farmworker rights in California used the American flag as a visual argument that the movement was wholly American. The post quickly went viral, with others agreeing with Kruse that what's happening now felt like a big PR blunder. Kruse was met with a wave of criticism, too: As Latino communities continue to come under attack ― with ICE and military agents in tactical gear raiding their places of work and routine immigration check-ins ― whose place is it to question their peaceful means of protest? 'If you want more American flags at protests, you are welcome to go to the protests and fly one. No one will stop you. You yourself can create that picture of tolerance and pluralism,' attorney and political pundit Will Stancil wrote on Bluesky. 'But don't sit on the sidelines and tell a community under racist assault not to assert its right to exist.' Later in the day, Kruse deleted the post, apologizing for being a little 'tone deaf.' '[I'm] still very much behind these protests and hope my worries will prove to be misplaced,' he wrote. Tone deaf is how Ian B. Bautista, a Milwaukeean of Mexican descent, saw criticism like Kruse's. For Bautista and many other Mexican Americans, the flag of Mexico is as American as apple pie ― or at least an Our Lady of Guadalupe candle. We're a melting pot, and at this point, the Mexican flag is deeply ingrained in Chicano culture ― and LA culture ― too. 'The Mexican flag is no more 'foreign' to El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula than the Dodgers, lowriders, the Coliseum, pupusas, Kendrick Lamar, Korean BBQ, the beach, Hollywood or the Lakers,' Bautista wrote on Bluesky, invoking LA's original Spanish name. If there is a protest involving anything even marginally concerning Mexican American or Latino rights, expect to see a Mexican flag, he told HuffPost. 'Almost 100 out of 100 times, when a Mexican-American or [Chicano] protests, it's safe to bet that the Mexican flag will be depicted in banners or signs,' said Bautista, who works for a nonprofit in the community building field. That's certainly true in Los Angeles, which was once Mexican territory. LA was a Spanish city until 1821, when Mexico gained independence from Spain, and California fell under the rule of the newly created Mexican nation. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, the region and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and became part of the United States. In the wake of that, LA has seen 'generations and generations of colonial and military violence, one that regularly targets Mexican, Black and Native people for the U.S. political desires,' said Michael Lechuga, the chair and an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of New Mexico. That all-too recent history only emboldens today's Latino Angelenos to reach for the Mexican flag in times of protest. For Bautista, he's personally more inclined to wave an American and Mexican flag simultaneously when he protests or celebrates his community. He's not alone; some protesters in LA have held up flags that are half Mexican, half American in design. Still, those criticizing protesters waving exclusively Mexican flags are coming from 'a very privileged place,' Bautista said. 'Racists ― as has been proven throughout our nation's history ― will express and assert racism without reasons,' he said. 'If a 'foreign' flag ― and it's arguable that the Mexican flag is 'foreign' to Los Angeles ― sets off racists or provides optics that are not according to white-centered perceptions of what 'America' is, then so be it.' Social movements and protests have always been fundamentally visual in nature: Think of the lone man standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square, or the transformative role videos on social media played in the Arab Spring uprisings. 'In the U.S. today especially, we have largely moved away from political dialogues and moved toward symbol wars,' Lechuga said. While the Mexican flag has a rich history and meaning removed from current events in the U.S., Lechuga said that today it's used as a silent, visual-only response to the xenophobic and inciting rhetoric the Trump administration has used to characterize people from Mexico and those from Latin American at large: 'drug dealers,' 'criminals,' 'rapists.' 'In other words, the Mexican flag at this week's protests is a symbol of resistance,' he said. 'When 'Mexicanness' is the target of this administration, holding the object that's seen as the quickest reference to it is rebellious.' 'And maybe, at this point in history, the Mexican flag is a stand-in for all migrants and for those that support them,' he said. 'The conflation of all Latin Americans with 'Mexicanness,' for instance, is pretty common.' Leisy J. Abrego, a professor of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, agrees that the Mexican flag has taken on larger symbolism in the U.S. immigration debate. 'The current president and his administration are saying in words, policies, and chaos-inducing actions that they hate immigrant communities,' she said. 'Whether they are immigrants, children or grandchildren of immigrants, the protesters are putting their bodies on the line for their own and other people's dignity.' In a moment when the highest leaders of this country want to deny them a sense of belonging, embracing the Mexican flag is not anti-American, per se, but a symbolic reminder that there's another place to belong, Abrego siad. 'The flags from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua are just reminders that immigrants can belong in multiple places,' she told HuffPost. 'Most importantly, though, these protesters are there to protect their community visibly and make the statement proudly that immigrants are not alone.' Some have noted that it didn't seem to be much of a problem to those on the far right when Jan. 6 protesters brought their other flags to the U.S. capitol. Lechuga has thought about it, too, as the 'what flag belongs' debate has waged this week. 'In addition to several Confederate flags and original 13-star colonial U.S., there were some people on Jan. 6 waving a South Vietnamese flag and Indian flag,' he said. 'Some who believe that the far right and largely anti-communist movements associated with those flags are the reason why some protesters brought them to the riot.' As for whether the number of Mexican flags at the protests is 'perfect propaganda' for Trump, Lechuga thinks you could make the case that the president's team is adept at turning almost anything into propaganda for its agenda. 'It's easy for an outside observer of the situation to give advice to protesters, like an armchair quarterback with no skin in the game,' he said. 'But I am not sure if it's the job of the demonstrator to convince the ICE agents or Marines that they are not an angry invading mob of foreign nationals.' What flags they'll bring to the function probably isn't the top priority on the minds of most people at these protests. 'More than anything, these folks are out there trying to keep their families and friends from being illegally kidnapped by a secretive federal agency,' Lechuga said.
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10 hours ago
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Suspended Osceola Sheriff Lopez seeks bond reduction after 2 codefendants released from jail
Suspended Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez will seek Wednesday to reduce the $1 million bond on racketeering charges that has kept him in jail nearly a week. A motion filed Tuesday by Lopez's lawyer, Mary Ibrahim, also seeks to modify a condition for his release that his movements be tracked by GPS. On Friday, Ibrahim unsuccessfully tried having Lopez' bond reduced to $50,000 by arguing he shouldn't be treated differently than a regular individual 'just because he has a sheriff's title.' Two women facing trial alongside him with lower bond amounts have already been released. Judge Brian Welke will consider Lopez' motion at a noon hearing. Sharon Fedrick, one of Lopez's alleged co-conspirators, left the Lake County Jail on Monday night after paying a $300,000 bond. Co-defendant Carol Cote paid a $100,000 bond Friday and walked free — the day after all three were arrested. Fedrick was followed by TV news cameras upon release and insisted she was not involved in the alleged scheme. 'Justice will be served,' she said as she walked away. Attempts by the Orlando Sentinel to contact her for further comment have not been successful. Two others implicated in the case, Sheldon Wetherholt and Ying Zhang, have not been arrested. All five face the same state charges — racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering — for what state and federal authorities said was an illegal gambling empire operating out of Osceola and Lake counties. The allegations, for now centered around an illegal casino in Kissimmee called The Eclipse, emerge from a scheme said to have generated more than $21.6 million. It was run out of a commercial building on West Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway that has also been an Indian-American-pizza restaurant and hookah bar. Lopez, 56, earned up to $700,000 in cash payments since 2020 while using his position as sheriff to skirt accountability, according to a 255-page affidavit described in court by prosecutors that remains under seal. He was suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis while his case proceeds and replaced by interim Sheriff Christopher Blackmon, the Florida Highway Patrol's Central Florida regional chief. Despite facing the same charges as other defendants, Lopez, elected in 2020 as Osceola County's first Hispanic sheriff, was ordered to pay the heftiest bond. It comes with a court-ordered stipulation the payment must be investigated to ensure funds don't come from illegal sources — a condition not required of prosecutors for Cote or Fedrick, according to court records. Defendants typically can obtain a bond by paying a bonding company 10% of the stated value in the court order. Lopez and his codefendants are scheduled to be arraigned June 30.
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St. Francis schools to put banned books back on shelves
() St. Francis Area Schools will place banned books back on library shelves and rewrite its library policy to comply with state law, according to a settlement reached in a lawsuit filed by the teachers union. The district had banned hugely popular and celebrated books including 'The Handmaid's Tale,' 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower,' 'The Bluest Eye' and 'The Kite Runner,' among others. The settlement requires them to be returned to library shelves. Education Minnesota sued the district in March on behalf of students, teachers and parents, alleging that the district was violating state law by banning books based on their ideas, stories and characters. The American Civil Liberties Union also filed a separate lawsuit. In 2024, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor-controlled Legislature passed a law touted as a ban on book bans. The law does allow for books to be removed from shelves based on practical reasons, 'legitimate pedagogical concerns, including but not limited to the appropriateness of potentially sensitive topics for the library's intended audience,' and to comply with other state or federal laws. But school districts cannot remove books based solely on its viewpoint or the messages, ideas or opinions it contains. St. Francis Area Schools relied on a website called — which has ties to the right-wing group Moms for Liberty — to determine which books were subject to removal from school shelves. (Booklooks has since shut down, but a third-party organization is maintaining the website's catalog.) The St. Francis case provides a free speech victory following years of repression of books, especially those with themes about race, sexuality and gender. 'I think the book ban movement … it really has little to do with protecting children. It has everything to do with targeting books with diverse viewpoints that may not be in line with the reviewers' political or religious beliefs,' 'Kite Runner' author Khaled Hosseini told the Reformer in March. In the settlement with the teachers union, St. Francis Area Schools agreed to put the books back on shelves and create a new library materials policy that guarantees input from parents and qualified media specialists.
