Security guards forcefully removed Democratic California U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla from a press conference U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was holding on immigration.
Video shows a Secret Service special agent on Noem’s detail grabbing Padilla by his jacket and shoving him from the room, as the senator struggles to catch his breath while identifying himself.
“I’m Sen. Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” he shouted in a halting voice. He tries to push back into the room when a second security guard appears.
Scuffling with officers outside the room, he can be heard bellowing, “Hands off!” He is later seen on his knees and then pushed to the ground and handcuffed in a hallway, with several officers atop him.
The shocking scene of a U.S. senator being aggressively removed from a Cabinet secretary’s news conference prompted immediate outrage from his Democratic colleagues. Images and video of the scuffle ricocheted through the halls of Congress, where stunned lawmakers demanded an immediate investigation and characterized the episode as another in a line of mounting threats to democracy by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said what he saw “sickened my stomach.”
“We need immediate answers to what the hell went on,” the New York senator said from the Senate floor. “It’s despicable, it’s disgusting, it’s so un-American.”
Padilla, the son of immigrants from Mexico, has been a harsh critic of President Donald Trump and his mass deportations agenda. In a post on the social platform X, he said of recent federal immigration raids in Los Angeles, “Trump isn’t targeting criminals in his mass deportation agenda, he is terrorizing communities, breaking apart families and putting American citizens in harm’s way.”
In a statement, Padilla’s office said he was in the building for a military briefing and stepped into Noem’s event. “He tried to ask the secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by federal agents, forced to the ground and handcuffed. He is not currently detained, and we are working to get additional information.”
Emerging afterward, Padilla said he was demanding answers about the Trump administration’s “increasingly extreme immigration enforcement actions” from Noem when he was removed. He said he and his colleagues had received little to no response to their questions in recent weeks, so he attended the briefing for more information.
“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question … I can only imagine what they are doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers throughout the Los Angeles community, and throughout California and throughout the country,” he said.
In a statement, DHS defended the actions of the agents.
“Senator Padilla chose disrespectful political theatre and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having his Senate security pin on as he lunged toward Secretary Noem,” the statement said. “Mr. Padilla was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers’ repeated commands.”
The agency said in that statement that agents “thought he was an attacker and officers acted appropriately.”
“Secretary Noem met with Senator Padilla after and held a 15 minute meeting,” the agency said.
Noem told Fox LA afterward that she had a “great” conversation with Padilla after the scuffle, but called his approach “something that I don’t think was appropriate at all.”
The fracas in Los Angeles came just days after Democratic U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver was indicted on federal charges alleging she assaulted and interfered with immigration officers outside a detention center in New Jersey while Newark’s mayor was being arrested after he tried to join a congressional oversight visit at the facility. Democrats have framed the charges as intimidation efforts by the Trump administration.
At the Capitol, senators were sharing the video with each other as they gathered on the Senate floor for a series of votes. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., said she texted Padilla immediately “to let him know we support him.”
She said she also showed it to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
“I think he was as shocked as we all were,” Blunt Rochester said. “So, hopefully we will come together as one voice.”
Democratic senators quickly gathered in the Senate chamber denouncing the treatment of their colleague — a well-liked and respected senator — and urged Americans to understand what was happening.
“If this is how a United States senator can be treated, none of our constituents are safe,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., as colleagues gathered on the Senate floor to denounce the situation. “This is a test for the country.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Trump is making this country “look more and more like a fascist state.”
“Will any Republican senator speak up for our democracy?” Warren pleaded.
Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, called the video “utterly revolting” and said there should be consequences.
Thune said he wants to know the facts of the situation.
“Obviously we will have response,” said Thune, R-S.D., as he walked to his office at the U.S. Capitol. “But I want to know the facts, find out exactly what happened.”
Other Republicans had a more muted response, with some saying they had not yet seen the video.
The No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, said he was unaware of what happened but said Padilla should have been at work in Washington.
The stark incident comes as Congress faces increasing episodes of encroachment on its authority. As a coequal branch of the U.S. government, the Trump administration is exerting its executive powers in untested ways.
As part of their work in Congress, lawmakers are responsible for providing oversight of the administration, its agencies and actions.
Several senators and representatives have been exercising their oversight roles by surveying the treatment of immigrants and others being detained as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation operation.
From the steps of the U.S. Capitol, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said what happened to Padilla “was un-American” and those involved must be held accountable.
“This is not going to end until there is accountability and until the Trump administration changes its behavior,” he said.
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Mascaro reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Seung Min Kim in Washington and Jaimie Ding contributed to this report.
