MEXICO CITY, March 27 (UPI) -- Paper replicas of Republican front-runner Donald Trump were burned in effigy across Mexico during the annual La Quema de Judas ritual.

In Mexico City, hundreds of people gathered and yelled "death" and other insults as they watched the burning paper-mache replicas of the billionaire, who has outraged Mexicans on both sides of the border. Trump has proposed building a wall at the United States-Mexican border and compared Mexican immigrants to rapists.


The event, in English called The Burning of Judas, happens every year on the eve of Easter. Christians set fire to paper effigies symbolizing Judas Iscariot, who the Bible said betrayed Jesus in his final days. In the past years, the effigies have been modeled after unpopular political figures. Other effigies burned in Mexico on Saturday were replicas of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U.S. President Barack Obama.

Leonardo Linares, an artist in Mexico City, built one of the many effigies that were burned Saturday.

"For Latinos here and in the U.S., he's a danger, a real threat," Linares 52, said. "He's a good man to burn as a Judas."

Despite his inflammatory rhetoric, Trump remains the front-runner for the Republican nomination with 739 delegates to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's 465. A total of 1,237 delegates is needed to get the nod automatically.