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 obtained an opportunity to ask the query. Brokers with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had already surrounded Padilla and have been pushing him out of the convention room. A cell phone video shot by a member of Padilla’s employees confirmed the senator yelling, “Arms off,” as he was escorted into an adjoining hallway.
Brokers finally compelled him to the bottom, as Padilla protested he couldn’t maintain his arms behind his again as requested and lay his physique flat on the similar time. One FBI agent then stood in entrance of the digital camera and ordered the staffer to cease recording.
The senator’s workplace has stated Padilla is presently not detained. In a press release, it defined that Padilla had hoped to query Noem and Common Gregory Guillot concerning the US army deployment in opposition to protesters in Los Angeles.
“Senator Padilla is presently 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 Common 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 totally 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 remedy and the immigration raids occurring underneath 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 employees, to cooks, to day labourers out within the Los Angeles group and all through California and all through the nation,” Padilla informed reporters.
The latest protests in Los Angeles got here in response to the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation marketing campaign, which has focused undocumented employees at locations such because the Residence Depot ironmongery shop chain.
Trump has since responded to these protests by deploying almost 4,000 Nationwide Guard troops and 700 US Marines to southern California, in what critics have known as an unlawful use of army energy in opposition to 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’d like speedy 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 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 upsetting 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 using US army may outdoors of federal websites, calling it a step in direction of “authoritarianism”.
Earlier this week, Padilla stated that Trump’s immigration raids have been “terrorising communities, breaking up households and placing Americans in hurt’s manner”.
Trump has recommended that he might have California Governor Gavin Newsom arrested and mused that he might declare martial legislation 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 submit that confirmed an image of Padilla being held on the bottom by three brokers.