CalMatters
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
By Jeanne Kuang and Nigel Duara
Federal agents forcibly removed U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla from a Homeland Security press conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, pushing him to the ground and handcuffing him in a skirmish widely condemned by California Democrats.
Padilla had walked into a press conference in which Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was defending her agency’s crackdown on illegal immigration in LA, where workplace raids starting last Friday spurred widespread protests, confrontations between activists and agents and President Donald Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the National Guard.
In videos of the incident shared on social media, Padilla identifies himself in front of an array of news cameras and says he has “questions for the secretary” as two men, apparently with the Secret Service, push him away from Noem’s lectern and toward the door.
He seemed to be challenging Noem’s assertion that immigration agents had focused on arresting “violent criminals” when guards pushed him into the hallway. Three armed men, two of them in FBI uniforms, forced Padilla onto the ground and handcuffed him behind his back. Another tells the person recording the video, who identifies himself as a Padilla staffer, to stop recording.
California Democrats immediately slammed the response.
“Senator Alex Padilla is one of the most decent people I know,” Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on social media. “This is outrageous, dictatorial, and shameful. Trump and his shock troops are out of control. This must end now.”
The Trump administration in recent weeks has ramped up not only immigration raids but also its hardline response to critics.
In LA, federal prosecutors charged well-known union leader David Huerta with conspiracy to impede a federal officer for his role in a protest outside a downtown garment warehouse last Friday where immigration agents were serving a search warrant and arresting immigrant workers. In New Jersey, they have charged Democratic U.S. Rep. Monica McIver with assault over a physical altercation that occurred when members of Congress visited an immigration detention center in Newark.
Gov. Newsom appointed Padilla to the Senate in 2020, filling the seat left by former Vice President Kamala Harris. He came up in politics through the Los Angeles City Council, and is the first Latino to represent California in the Senate.
Homeland Security officials wrote on the department’s X account that Padilla’s interruption was “disrespectful political theatre” and that Secret Service agents thought he was an attacker.
Senator Padilla’s office sends me this video of his take-down and detention at Sec. Noem’s press conference in L.A. pic.twitter.com/RLUVYP1Jsb
— Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) June 12, 2025
This is fascism. This is an authoritative government. ICE is the Gestapo. The white hoods are now red hats.
Fight the fascists!
100%. Time to take out the future Nazis. Pieces of s*** these republicans
We may be outgunned, but we’re not outmanned!
It’s awful close to go time.
When are Dems going to DO SOMETHING??
I think Gavin is about to do something, hopefully. Problem is, we’re outnumbered in the House and Senate with some “Democrats” even supporting these immigration raids.
We can’t wait for our leadership to do something anymore. It’s time to get loud and show the world that Americans, REAL Americans, won’t stand for this fascist crap anymore.
When are WE, the people, going to do something?!
Not that we aren’t.
What can “the Dems” do? They have no political power due to electoral outcomes. They’ll be outvoted on anything they even try to say.
What should they, the politicians, do?
Ideas, good and useful preferred, are welcome.
So, a federal judge just ruled in CA’s favor and returned control of the National Guard to Newsom.
Gavin needs to ACT NOW and recall them immediately. Trump will appeal, but if Newsom immediately calls them off and sends them back, there’s nothing Trump can do unless an appeals judge reverses it, but then he’d have to call them all back and it would be an administrative mess.
GAVIN NEEDS TO MOVE QUICK!
Ugh…. I got too excited. So the judge ordered Trump to return control.
We all know that won’t happen even if the Supreme Court orders him to.
Damn!
A total lack of principle allows fascism to move faster than the judiciary, unfortunately.
lol Yes, you did. I get it.
YIN – looks like the judge did order that control be handed over tomorrow by noon, though. So, partially right? I’ll give myself a half star for that one 🤣
I hope the troops remember that they swore an oath to defend the constitution, and not an oath of fealty to the orange moron. They have a sworn duty not to carry out illegal orders.
Next time Alex Padilla should do better. Don’t come in looking and sounding like a drunk, pissed off protestor disrupting a conference. Doesn’t help your cause.
You don’t seem to mind sounding like a bigoted fool, and yet nobody has thrown you out.
BASIC – of course you’re wrong. He didn’t come barging in, he was escorted in by federal agents while he was waiting for another hearing. He stood in the back and only spoke up once he could no longer bear the BS coming from your dream girl’s polluted mouth.
But of course, Paul, you see a brown skinned man raising his voice while cops push him away and all you see is a “disruptive protestor” acting “like a drunk.”
Kind of sounds like you every time you comment here….
Here Paul, read it yourself:
“The California Democrat said he was escorted into the news conference by a National Guard member and FBI agent, rejecting Noem’s characterization that he “burst into the room” and “lunged” at her.
“Lies, lies, lies,” Padilla said, after watching a clip of Noem making the comments on Fox News.
The senator said he was standing in the back of the room listening to Noem when “the rhetoric got to be too much,” specifically, he said, the secretary’s comment that the administration was in LA to “liberate” the city.”
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/la-protests-ice-raids-trump-06-12-25#cmbtzcavm00163b6mff0ldt6n
I’ll just say it, first time for me. But not what or the way I’d like to say!
You are a jerk for saying this. Have you ever seen a drunk?!
This is just a ridiculous assertion, Basic.
And why do you continue to post here, in this sick abusive relationship with Sacjon?!
Appalling, disgusting and enraging.
The Guardian USA:
“Chris Stein
I am in the Capitol, and just heard the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson defend the handcuffing of the California senator Alex Padilla.
“A sitting member of Congress should not act like that. It is beneath a member of the Congress, it is beneath a US senator,” he said, calling Padilla’s actions “wildly inappropriate”.
He added: “They’re supposed to lead by example. That is not a good example. We have to turn the temperature down in this country and not escalate it. The Democrat party is on the wrong side. They’re defending lawbreakers, and now they’re acting like lawbreakers themselves.”
Johnson accused Padilla of “charging a cabinet secretary at a press conference”.
[ridiculous BS; we’ve seen the video, which they were told to stop recording. It’s LEGAL to record law enforcement.]
Asked whether Padilla should be investigated, he replied: “It’s not my decision to make. I’m not in that chamber, but I do think that it merits immediate attention by my other colleagues over there … I think that that behavior, at a minimum, it rises to the level of a censure.”
As he spoke, Democratic lawmakers walking by heckled him, with one yelling: “That’s a lie!”
From 3h ago
15.35 EDT
‘If this is how they respond to a senator with a question, imagine what they’re doing across the country,’ says Padilla
Padilla goes on:
If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, 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, throughout the LA community and throughout California and throughout the country. We will hold this administration accountable. We’ll have more to say in the coming days.
US senator Alex Padilla gives a statement.
US senator Alex Padilla gives a statement. Photograph: Aude Guerrucci/Reuters
Share
Updated at
16.16 EDT
14m ago
18.37 EDT
Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, told CBS News on Thursday that video of her Democratic colleague from California, Alex Padilla, being forcibly removed from a press conference in Los Angeles as he tried to ask homeland security secretary Kristi Noem a question, is “horrible”.
“It is shocking, at every level”, Murkowski added. “It’s not the America I know.”
1h ago
17.45 EDT
Chris Stein
Members of the congressional Hispanic caucus said they paid visits to the offices of the Senate majority leader John Thune and the speaker of the House Mike Johnson after the handcuffing of the California senator Alex Padilla, but that neither of the Republican leaders were available to meet with them.
“Senator Padilla was there to express his opinion. Senator Padilla was there to ask questions. Senator Padilla was there because his office is also in that same building. That’s why senator Padilla was there,” said the Democratic representative Adriano Espaillat, the caucus’s chair. “I feel this amounts to an assault, a felony, and we want a full and complete investigation of this matter immediately.”
He tied the incident to Donald Trump’s hardline enforcement of immigration policy, which has been marked by aggressive waves of arrests by federal agents of people suspected of being in the country illegally.
“We are concerned that this is totally out of control. The weaponization of immigration has taken us to a place in America where we’ve never been before. So divided, so split, so violent and aggressive that obviously you saw those officers there, that detail there, whoever it was, very aggressive, while the senator attempted several times to say that he was a US senator, he identified himself,” Espaillat said.
“We will not let this go. We will continue to push forward. We are here to save America from a dictatorship.”
I’m sure Salud Carbajal supports Padilla, but I’m posting this to list the members of the congressional Hispanic caucus:
https://chc.house.gov/members
Salud is on the board of directors.
https://chci.org/board-of-directors/
I was wrong, the Institute is different from the caucus. Salud is on the board of directors of the institute:
https://chci.org/board-of-directors/
Ask a question while being brown, after CLEARLY identifying yourself…. you’ll get strong armed, pulled into the hallway, thrown to the ground and handcuffed. Despicable, cowardly behavior by I.C.E Barbie’s thugs and this fascist govt.
#PoliceState
#RESIST
Kristi Noem, will defend anything Trump wants and she will go to any lengths. Remember she shot her own dog. She was recently asked to define due process and she thought it meant that the President has the power to arrest people and put them straight in jail. She is incompetent and should not be in higher office. Padilla on the other hand is respected Senator who was the first latina council member in LA. So Noem sends FBI to arrest him because he asked her to defend why she is arresting people in LA without due process and people who are not “violent criminals” We must all protest this Saturday. And show Noem and #47 that we will fight for our freedoms and not put up with her and the enabling spineless who support her and #47 that they can’t trash our democracy and constitution. So much respect for Padilla.
Yes! Mind boggling! Noem was asked by Sen. Hassan (New Hampshire) what habeus corpus is.
THIS is must-see tv. THIS is the level and “quality” of our government’s cabinet members:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_UIbsre2cY
Noem, you are SO WRONG!
A slightly longer interview with the Senator (18:10);
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/extended-interview-sen-padilla-shares-new-details-about-his-forced-removal-in-handcuffs-241494597874
🚴
Sad thing is….as a lifelong democrat,I watched the party that used to focus on the economy, healthcare ,education, the environment ,etc. put their constant focus on race(whites are colonizers, racists,”we need CRT”), pronouns, ‘men can be women’ and vice versa, men in women’s sports, locker rooms and bathrooms, etc.,and making excuses for the criminal act of trespassing.So essentially we handed the election to trump.Hate to say, we kind of did this to ourselves…… so sad
There are many problems with the Democratic Party, but standing up for minorities is not a problem. If you’re a lifelong democrat then it’s sad that you don’t understand this. Now our messaging is crap and we need to have a streamlined and direct message with good communicators, something we are lacking at the moment.
This is a ridiculous over-generalization. And I’m not a Democrat.
If you have a problem with due process and human rights then you can pretty much get wrecked.
CENTRIST – you think racism is a joke or something? Sounds like a typical, ignorant white Republican.
“Criminal act of trespassing?” You mean on Jan 6th?
You’re no democrat. Never were. Liar.
What a stupid political stunt. It backfired just like the many other desperate attempts for attention.
Have you noticed any other political stunts this week or is it just a “stunt” when a Democrat does it?
Sen. Padilla displayed a textbook method of what NOT to do when confronting a cabinet member. Acting unhinged….check. Not following LE orders….check. Resisting arrest….check. It was all on video, so he got what he wanted.
Did we watch the same video? Wow you’re obtuse.
Here’s some news, Bees. Citizens are not required to “follow LE orders” unless LE has established cause to believe that the person has committed or is committing a crime. LE does not have an absolute right to physically touch, assault, or restrain. Padilla did not “resist arrest” because he was never under arrest, nor were they attempting to arrest him.
Keep carrying water for fascist thugs though.
Face down eating a dirt sandwich in handcuffs is not a good look for anyone, let alone a Senator. I wish him well, but hope and pray that he does a better job in the future of representing our state. It was pure theater with horrible acting, but the lead took quite a bow at the end. Whether you think it was a stunt or not, Padilla can do better than to disgrace himself.
Well now, your opinion of the optics is entirely different than your false claims about what a citizen is and isn’t required to do. Knee jerk for fascism Bees, every time.
“Pure theater?” LOL that’s hilarious when considering the cosplay ICE Barbie standing there lying about his city.
You people are just gross. You believe the lies of proven liars and criminals over the visual evidence that is available which completely shatters your “opinion.”
Really bad theater. Comical indeed. Like replacing Clint Eastwood in the ‘Dirty Harry’ series of movies with Charles Nelson Reilly. “”Now You Know Why They Call Me ‘Dirty Harry’. I Get to Wash Every Dirty Load of Laundry That Comes Along.”
Love how Bends Knees views the world through television series and movies, and bases his philosophy on fictions big and small.
Be sure to brush your teeth after sucking all the leather off those boots, BEES.
Fascists and their fangirls won’t be here for long. Americans are taking it back.
Yeah, have you noticed how all appearances by trump and his minions are like that?
Really, really bad theater, but with tragic real world consequences.
They never come up with anything resembling competence. About the only things they’ve done really well at are kakistocracy and kleptocracy.
Yeah, that was sad, Alex. You need to do way better if you want to represent and lead. Total foolish stunt.
BASIC – what is “foolish” about trying to ask a question when someone is standing up blatantly LYING about the place you grew up in.
No, he didn’t barge in. No, he didn’t lunge. He was already allowed in the room. He came forward to ask a question. When he was pushed back, he dug in and tried to stay and repeat his question AFTER IDENTIFYING HIMSELF.
So again, what was the “foolish stunt” here?
What’s sad is the fact that you eat everything up that Trump is serving you and you never, not once, express a bit of concern for human beings who are being harassed, profiled, and demonized. You cheer on the sidelines as Trump’s administration violates the laws of the land repeatedly.
Pathetic.
Is no one going to note what Noem was saying? Basically she announced a federal coup d’etat of the government of the State of California and the City of Los Angeles. She said the federal takeover was to “liberate” the state from the Governor and Mayor and socialism. It was not about subduing violence. Of course this course of conduct is really and old game plan for Fascism. Let’s react to the deeper evil that this people pose instead of allowing momentary distractions to takeover the attention of the people.
Yeah, I don’t know, at some point a free citizenry might have to start exercising their 2nd amendment rights to overturn a government which is violating the constitution. That’;s what the law of the land states, that is what duty and patriotism dictates.
That’s funny. Rally your Edhat buddy or two Alex to take back the goverment that was elected through a free and fair election. See how that goes. Silly.i know Sack is trying to get fired up…”it’s almost time”. wtf?
Hey BASIC – the election is 100% irrelevant. Yes, even an elected leader can turn.
You should read about this thing that happened a while back. Called the Third Reich. This guy Hitler (a real clown) was guess what….. ELECTED in a “free and fair” election.
Silly, huh?
Hey, how’s the fingerpainting going today? Have you tried doing a turkey with your handprint yet? Super cool stuff, kiddo!
BI Guy is busy struggling to figure out what all the turgid prose in Mein Kampf is trying to tell him. He may just have to rely on the voices in his head, like Bends Knees.
So if someone is elected in a free and fair system, it’s your position that they have carte blanche to violate the law?
Crazy bro.
Yes, RHS! She basically announced they were invading Los Angeles (and CA by extension) to “liberate” us from Newsom and our liberal policies. That is outrageous for the federal government to announce.
I never thought I would actually see Trump doing this stuff. More tragically, I never thought I’d see so many “Americans” (they’re not anymore) blindly support fascism! The same “Don’t Tread on Me” types are whoopin’ and hollerin’ and frothing at the bit to “own the libs” while giving up their own rights.
ALEX is right. This is what the 2A was meant for. Might be time for real Americans to stand up to this!
No one wants to see any US Senator face down getting cuffed by LE. Once Sen. Padilla looks back on how he approached this whole situation, he will realize that he could have done things differently. He already knows that being humiliated for his own actions resulted in him ending up on the ground and smothered by LE. He could issue some sort of apology and mention something like he let his emotions get out of control or something along those lines. He needs to do something, even something small, to let the public know that he’s not a “bad” guy at all.
BEES – just because you and the other MAGots get scared when a brown skinned man starts raising his voice to ask questions of a self-proclaimed fascist, doesn’t mean he owes the public squat.
Good people and real Americans saw what he did and know it was not “bad.”
Be sure to floss all that leather out from betwixt your veneers.
One characteristic of many of our magats seems to be similar to others on the spectrum like Musk, who has no clue about human interaction and empathy.