Democratic lawmakers have expressed outrage after United States Senator Alex Padilla of California was roughly faraway from a Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) information convention, then compelled to the bottom and handcuffed.
A video of the incident reveals Padilla showing to interrupt a Thursday information convention in Los Angeles held by DHS chief Kristi Noem.
“I’m Senator Alex Padilla,” he stated, stepping ahead as Noem spoke. “I’ve a query for the secretary.”
However he by no means received an opportunity to ask the query. Brokers with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had already surrounded Padilla and had been pushing him out of the convention room. A cell phone video shot by a member of Padilla’s workers confirmed the senator yelling, “Arms off,” as he was escorted into an adjoining hallway.
Brokers in the end compelled him to the bottom, as Padilla protested he couldn’t hold his arms behind his again as requested and lay his physique flat on the identical time. One FBI agent then stood in entrance of the digicam and ordered the staffer to cease recording.
The senator’s workplace has stated Padilla is at present not detained. In a press release, it defined that Padilla had hoped to query Noem and Basic Gregory Guillot concerning the US army deployment towards protesters in Los Angeles.
“Senator Padilla is at present in Los Angeles exercising his obligation to carry out Congressional oversight of the federal authorities’s operations in Los Angeles and throughout California,” his workplace stated in a press release.
“He was within the federal constructing to obtain a briefing with Basic Guillot and was listening to Secretary Noem’s press convention. He tried to ask the Secretary a query, and was forcibly eliminated by federal brokers.”
What simply occurred to @SenAlexPadilla is completely abhorrent and outrageous.
He’s a sitting United States Senator.
This administration’s violent assaults on our metropolis should finish.pic.twitter.com/qbh9ZPE8i9
— Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) June 12, 2025
Padilla himself held a information convention afterwards, the place he drew a parallel between his tough therapy and the immigration raids occurring beneath the administration of President Donald Trump.
“If that is how this administration responds to a senator with a query, I can solely think about what they’re doing to farm staff, to cooks, to day labourers out within the Los Angeles neighborhood and all through California and all through the nation,” Padilla advised reporters.
The latest protests in Los Angeles got here in response to the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation marketing campaign, which has focused undocumented staff at locations such because the House Depot ironmongery store chain.
Trump has since responded to these protests by deploying practically 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 US Marines to southern California, in what critics have referred to as an unlawful use of army energy towards civilians.
On Thursday, Padilla’s Democratic colleagues within the Senate rushed to voice their assist after the incident.
“I simply noticed one thing that sickened my abdomen — the manhandling of a United States senator,” Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer stated. “We want instant solutions to what the hell went on.”
Consultant Maxwell Frost of Florida later shot a video exhibiting Democrats strolling to Senate Majority Chief John Thune’s workplace to name for motion.
“There have to be accountability for the detainment of a Senator. This isn’t regular,” Frost wrote.
On social media, nevertheless, DHS accused Padilla of partaking in “disrespectful political theatre”. It argued that the senator had not recognized himself as he “lunged” in the direction of Noem, one thing that seems to be contradicted by video of the incident.
DHS stated Noem met Padilla after the information convention for quarter-hour.
California officers have accused Trump of frightening tensions within the state by sending the army to crack down on the protests, a few of which turned violent however have already began to ease.
The final time a president deployed the Nationwide Guard in a state over the objections of a governor was in 1965, to guard civil rights protesters from violence in segregated Alabama.
Governor Gavin Newsom has since sued the Trump administration to dam the usage of US army would possibly outdoors of federal websites, calling it a step in the direction of “authoritarianism”.
Earlier this week, Padilla stated that Trump’s immigration raids had been “terrorising communities, breaking up households and placing Americans in hurt’s manner”.
Trump has recommended that he may have California Governor Gavin Newsom arrested and mused that he may declare martial regulation if the protests proceed. He additionally described the protesters as “animals” and “a international enemy”, framing them as a part of a wider “invasion” that justifies emergency powers.
“If they will handcuff a US Senator for asking a query, think about what they may do to you,” Newsom stated in a social media put up that confirmed an image of Padilla being held on the bottom by three brokers.
