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- Federal agents manhandled California Sen. Alex Padilla out of the room, shoved him down onto his knees and handcuffed him.
- Sen. Adam Schiff, our other California senator, came to his colleague’s defense, demanding an investigation.
Things were looking tense in Los Angeles on Thursday even before federal agents took down U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla.
We had the Marines, slightly trained in domestic crowd control, heading out to do crowd control. We had ICE raids, sweeping up a man from a church. Or maybe it was ICE — the armed and masked agents refused to say where they were from.
But then the situation went further south, which to be honest, I thought would take at least until Monday.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was in town to cosplay at being an ICE agent herself. You know she loves to dress up. Padilla, who was in the same building to meet with a general, went to a news conference she was hosting and tried to ask her a question.
Bad idea.
Federal agents manhandled him out of the room, shoved him down onto his knees and handcuffed him. By the end, he was face down on the ground. The FBI has confirmed to my colleagues that he was not arrested, but that’s little comfort.
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While officers may not have known Padilla was a U.S. senator when they started going after him, they certainly did by the time the cuffs were snapping.
Padilla was heard saying, “Hands off, hands off. I’m Sen. Alex Padilla,” as the officers pushed him back.
The hands remained on.
Shortly after the video of this frightening episode hit social media, Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on X, “If they can handcuff a U.S. Senator for asking a question, imagine what they will do to you.”
Indeed.
After he got back on his feet, Padilla made it clear all he was trying to do was get some information because his questions have gone unanswered so far.
“I was there peacefully,” he told reporters. “At one point I had a question, and so I began to ask a question. I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room. ... If this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers to cooks to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country.”
It’s hard not to think of Martin Niemöller’s poem, “First They Came,” in times like these. Niemöller, a priest, was actually pro-Nazi until the machine turned on him and he ended up in a concentration camp for opposing Hitler’s rules on churches.
After the news conference, Noem offered a sorry-not-sorry.
“I wish that he would have reached out and identified himself and let us know who he was and that he wanted to talk,” she told reporters. “His approach, you know, was something that I don’t think was appropriate at all, but the conversation was great, and we’re going to continue to communicate.”
It was great! Send in the Marines!
When asked why she had ordered the removal of Padilla, Noem deferred to law enforcement.
“I’ll let the law enforcement speak to how this situation was handled, but I will say that it’s people need to identify themselves before they start lunging at these moments during press conference,” she said.
“Lunging.”
It is starting to feel like being brown in America is a crime. Brown man allegedly lunging is the new Black man driving — scary enough that any response is justified.
Shortly after Noem made that accusation, it was already wending its way through MAGA land. House Speaker Mike Johnson, when asked about the sordid incident, quickly blamed Padilla. Johnson suggested that the Senate should censure Padilla because “there needs to be a message sent.”
Then he claimed that we can’t have “senators charging at cabinet secretaries,” which of course, we didn’t. But truth rarely troubles Trump, or his followers.
Sen. Adam Schiff, our other California senator, came to his colleague’s defense, demanding an investigation.
“Anyone who looks at it — anyone — anyone who looks at this, it will turn your stomach,” he said. “To look at this video and see what happened reeks — reeks — of totalitarianism. This is not what democracies do.”
Political pundit Mike Madrid pointed out how personal this issue of immigration is to Padilla.
Padilla is the son of Mexican immigrants, Santos and Lupe Padilla. He went into politics in 1995 because of the anti-immigrant Proposition 187, the California measure that knocked all undocumented people off of many public services, including schools. He’s been a champion of immigrant communities ever since.
“Hard to describe how angered and passionate Senator Alex Padilla is — I’ve known him for 25 years and never seen anything like this,” Madrid wrote online. “He’s a living example of how Latinos feel right now.”
And not just Latinos — all Americans who care about democracy.
We are about to have approximately 3,000 hours of debate on whether Padilla deserved what he got because he was not invited to the press conference.
The right wing is going to parse the video looking for that lunge and saying Padilla was aggressive. The left will say he has a right to ask questions, even a duty because he is an elected representative whose constituents are being detained and disappeared, even ones who are U.S. citizens.
I’ll say I genuinely do not care if you are pro-Trump or pro-Padilla.
If you care about our Constitution, about due process, about civil rights, watching a U.S. senator forced onto his knees for asking questions should be a terrifying wake-up call.
It turns out that it’s true: After they come for the vulnerable, they do indeed come for the rest.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
- The article portrays Senator Alex Padilla’s forcible removal during a Homeland Security press conference as emblematic of escalating authoritarianism, framing it within broader concerns about civil rights erosion and targeted enforcement against Latino communities[2][4]. Padilla’s physical restraint by federal agents—despite identifying himself as a U.S. senator—is characterized as part of a pattern of dehumanizing rhetoric and policies toward immigrants, with parallels drawn to historical anti-Latino measures like Proposition 187[1][2].
- Advocates argue the incident underscores systemic overreach by federal authorities, citing concurrent ICE raids in Los Angeles that allegedly involved masked agents refusing to identify their agency affiliation while detaining individuals, including at a church[1][2]. Governor Gavin Newsom and Senator Adam Schiff condemned the actions as unconstitutional, with Schiff likening the scene to “totalitarianism”[3][4].
- The piece emphasizes Padilla’s personal stakes in immigration policy as the son of Mexican immigrants and a longtime advocate against anti-immigrant measures, suggesting his treatment reflects broader Latino anxieties about racial profiling and state violence[2][4]. Protests in downtown Los Angeles, met with curfews and mass arrests, are framed as a grassroots response to perceived federal oppression[1][3].
Different views on the topic
- Critics of Padilla’s actions argue he disrupted a formal press conference, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asserting that he failed to properly identify himself before “lunging” toward the podium, justifying law enforcement’s response as a security precaution[2][4]. Federal officials defended the agents’ conduct, noting they followed protocols for managing uninvited disruptions at high-profile events[2][3].
- Supporters of the Trump administration’s immigration policies highlight the need for stringent enforcement amid ongoing protests, pointing to federal charges against two individuals accused of Molotov cocktail attacks at demonstration sites as evidence of escalating violence requiring military backup[3][4]. The deployment of Marines and National Guard troops is framed as a necessary measure to restore order[1][3].
- Some commentators contend the focus on Padilla’s detainment distracts from legitimate debates over border security, arguing that elected officials should prioritize dialogue over confrontational tactics during official briefings[2][4]. Noem reiterated her willingness to engage with Padilla post-incident but criticized his approach as “inappropriate”[4].
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