Overview

• Protests have persisted daily around the Metropolitan Detention Center, drawing National Guard deployments and lines of LAPD officers blocking demonstrators.
• Vendors in downtown Los Angeles have sold an array of flags—including Mexican, U.S.-Mexico hybrid, Guatemalan and Salvadoran—as participants rally against ICE detentions.
• Demonstrators like Axel Martinez and Christopher Kim say carrying foreign banners honors their family origins and unites a diverse immigrant community under a shared cause.
• White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Rep. Adam Kinzinger have condemned the use of non-American flags, urging protesters to carry U.S. banners instead.
• Conservative commentators and Mexican Senate president Gerardo Fernández Noroña have invoked La Reconquista and 1830s territorial maps, sparking fierce debate over sovereignty and loyalty.