June 12, 2025.

At a press conference for Secretary of Homeland Security, Christy Noam in Los Angeles today,

Nome's security assaulted Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat of California, dragged him into the hallway, forced him to the

floor, and handcuffed him as he tried to ask the secretary a question. Senator Padilla is the

highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border

Safety. That subcommittee has

oversight of federal agencies with citizenship, asylum, refugee, and immigration enforcement

responsibilities. After the attack, Senator Padilla explained, I'm here in Los Angeles today, and I was here in the

federal building in the conference room awaiting a scheduled briefing from federal officials as

part of my responsibility as a senator to provide oversight and accountability. While I was waiting

for the briefing, I heard that Secretary Nome was having a press conference a couple of doors down the hall.

Since the beginning of the year, but especially over the course of recent weeks, I, several of my colleagues, have been asking the Department of Homeland Security for more information and more answers on their increasingly extreme immigration enforcement actions.

And we've gotten little to no information in response to our inquiries. And so I came to the press

conference to hear what she had to say, to see if I could learn any new additional information.

At one point, I had a question, and so I began to ask a question.

I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room.

I was forced to the ground, and I was handcuffed.

I was not arrested. I was not detained.

I will say this.

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 out in the

...