Democratic lawmakers have expressed outrage after United States Senator Alex Padilla of California was roughly removed from a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) news conference, then forced to the ground and handcuffed.
A video of the incident shows Padilla appearing to interrupt a Thursday news conference in Los Angeles held by DHS chief Kristi Noem.
“I am Senator Alex Padilla,” he said, stepping forward as Noem spoke. “I have a question for the secretary.”
But he never got a chance to ask the question. Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had already surrounded Padilla and were pushing him out of the conference room. A mobile phone video shot by a member of Padilla’s staff showed the senator yelling, “Hands off,” as he was escorted into an adjacent hallway.
Agents ultimately forced him to the ground, as Padilla protested he could not keep his hands behind his back as requested and lay his body flat at the same time. One FBI agent then stood in front of the camera and ordered the staffer to stop recording.
The senator’s office has said Padilla is currently not detained. In a statement, it explained that Padilla had hoped to question Noem and General Gregory Guillot about the US military deployment against protesters in Los Angeles.
“Senator Padilla is currently in Los Angeles exercising his duty to perform Congressional oversight of the federal government’s operations in Los Angeles and across California,” his office said in a statement.
“He was in the federal building to receive a briefing with General Guillot and was listening to Secretary Noem’s press conference. He tried to ask the Secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by federal agents.”
What just happened to @SenAlexPadilla is absolutely abhorrent and outrageous.
He is a sitting United States Senator.
This administration’s violent attacks on our city must end.pic.twitter.com/qbh9ZPE8i9
— Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) June 12, 2025
Padilla himself held a news conference afterwards, where he drew a parallel between his rough treatment and the immigration raids happening under the administration of President Donald Trump.
“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, I can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day labourers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,” Padilla told reporters.
The recent protests in Los Angeles came in response to the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, which has targeted undocumented workers at places such as the Home Depot hardware store chain.
Trump has since responded to those protests by deploying nearly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 US Marines to southern California, in what critics have called an illegal use of military power against civilians.
On Thursday, Padilla’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate rushed to voice their support after the incident.
“I just saw something that sickened my stomach — the manhandling of a United States senator,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “We need immediate answers to what the hell went on.”
Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida later shot a video showing Democrats walking to Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s office to call for action.
“There must be accountability for the detainment of a Senator. This is not normal,” Frost wrote.
On social media, however, DHS accused Padilla of engaging in “disrespectful political theatre”. It argued that the senator had not identified himself as he “lunged” towards Noem, something that appears to be contradicted by video of the incident.
DHS said Noem met Padilla after the news conference for 15 minutes.
California officials have accused Trump of provoking tensions in the state by sending the military to crack down on the protests, some of which turned violent but have already started to ease.
The last time a president deployed the National Guard in a state over the objections of a governor was in 1965, to protect civil rights protesters from violence in segregated Alabama.
Governor Gavin Newsom has since sued the Trump administration to block the use of US military might outside of federal sites, calling it a step towards “authoritarianism”.
Earlier this week, Padilla said that Trump’s immigration raids were “terrorising communities, breaking apart families and putting American citizens in harm’s way”.
Trump has suggested that he could have California Governor Gavin Newsom arrested and mused that he could declare martial law if the protests continue. He also described the protesters as “animals” and “a foreign enemy”, framing them as part of a wider “invasion” that justifies emergency powers.
“If they can handcuff a US Senator for asking a question, imagine what they will do to you,” Newsom said in a social media post that showed a picture of Padilla being held on the ground by three agents.