Mexican Flags at Immigration Protests Make This Mexican American Wince

on Feb 4, 2025

SAN DIEGO -- President Donald Trump's recent spate of deportations means different things to different people.

For conservatives, the glorious sight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents hauling away immigrant workers in handcuffs is evidence of -- in MAGA lingo -- "promises made, promises kept."

Of course, it's likely that some promises will be broken. During the campaign, Trump vowed to remove every single one of the estimated 10-12 million undocumented immigrants who live in the United States.

I don't want to give away the ending. But that is never going to happen. The Republican will be lucky to match the performance of the current record-holder, who just so happens to be a Democrat. Former President Barack Obama deported more than 3.2 million people in his eight years in office.

In response, U.S. Latinos said little. There were no Latina pop stars tearing up in videos. No Latino CNN hosts resigned in protest. As loyal Democrats, many Latinos made excuses for Obama and justified the deportations by convincing themselves that only criminals -- or as the president described them, "gangbangers" -- were being deported.

But, when it comes to the Trump crackdown, Latinos have suddenly found their voice. They are responding with threats of work stoppages, school walkouts and public protests.

Those who choose to participate in demonstrations should do themselves, and their allies, a favor and leave one prop at home, since it has no place in a protest: the Mexican flag. It's bad manners, and even worse civics, to wave the flag of one country while demanding rights, privileges and accommodation from another. Choose a lane, folks.

As a Mexican American, news footage of defiant protesters waving Mexican flags -- even when the flags are displayed alongside their American counterpart -- makes my blood boil.

Those images also remind me that I'm a centrist on the issue of immigration. I can say this with certainty because there are plenty of folks to the right of me, and what seems to be an equal number on the left. Another giveaway is that I can easily find fault with the liberal approach to the issue, and the conservative one is no better. Lastly, there's the fact that, in the 35 years that I've written and spoken about immigration, I've been attacked by rigid ideologues in both camps.

If I'm not in the middle on this issue, then this must be one of those rare instances where there is no middle.

As a Latino, a "never Trumper" and a strong supporter of legal immigration who is not shy about poking holes in every hateful and harebrained idea proposed by politicians -- and yes, I'm very busy these days -- a lot of MAGA meatheads think I support an open border.

It's a racist assumption that I imagine most white journalists don't encounter. Consider the reader who said that taking my advice on how to handle immigration would be "like asking the Nazis to help with the D-Day invasion." Or the one who accused me of wanting an open border so I could "let in" my cousins.

Nope, no racism there. I stand corrected.

When it comes to Mexican flags being waved at public protests, we've traveled down this road before.

In 1994, Mexican flags were a constant presence during protests in Los Angeles against Proposition 187, a spiteful California ballot initiative that barred the undocumented and their U.S.-born children from accessing public schools, social services and nonemergency health care. The measured was approved by voters, but it was ultimately struck down by the federal courts as unconstitutional.

In 2006, the Mexican flags reappeared during a series of protests that occurred in cities all around the country. The protesters were furious that the House of Representatives passed The Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 which -- among other things -- made it a crime to be in the country without authorization and a crime to assist the undocumented.

In both cases, waving the Mexican flag backfired. The tactic played right into the hands of the nativists who already assume that the allegiance of immigrants and their supporters lies south of the border.

Now it's going to happen again. And Trump supporters will ask: Why do protesters display so much loyalty to a country from which so many migrants can't wait to escape and are so reluctant to return?

MAGA is wrong about an awful lot -- especially when it comes to immigration. But, in this case, they're asking the right question.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.