Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., was forcibly removed from a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday after he tried to question Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a media event related to immigration.
“I am Sen. Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” Padilla told Noem, which prompted several men dressed in plainclothes to push him out of the room. A top FBI official later said bureau personnel and Secret Service agents were involved in his removal.
Padilla’s office shared a video of the incident with NBC News. The video shows Padilla being taken into a hallway outside and pushed face forward onto the ground as officers with FBI-identifying vests tell him to put his hands behind his back. The officers then handcuff him.
President Donald Trump’s immigration policies — and the administration’s handling of demonstrations against them — have sparked an outcry in recent days. After protesters clashed with officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles on Friday, Trump deployed members of the National Guard, and later the Marines, to assist local law enforcement. Dozens of demonstrations have taken place across the country since then.
Padilla to reporters later Thursday that he was waiting for a scheduled briefing from military officials when he learned Noem was in the same building and decided to join her briefing.
“I was there peacefully,” he said. “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.”
Noem offered a different account in an interview on Fox News in which she falsely said Padilla did not identify himself before he was forced out.
“We were conducting a press conference to update everyone on the enforcement actions that are ongoing to bring people bring peace to the city of Los Angeles, and this man burst into the room, started lunging towards the podium, interrupting me and elevating his voice, and was stopped, did not identify himself, and was removed from the room,” she said.
Before Padilla began questioning Noem, she spoke to reporters about the administration’s actions, the subject of her appearance in Los Angeles. Noem said the Department of Homeland Security and its agencies, as well as the military, “will continue to sustain and increase our operations in this city.”
“We are not going away,” she said. “We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country,” she said, referring to California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats.
As Padilla tried to question her, Noem spoke over him, “I want to say thank you to every single person,” and he was removed from the room.
The news conference was held in a federal building.
Anthony Cangelosi, a former Secret Service agent, said that if it was an event that was not open to the public, then the forcible removal of Padilla appeared to be justified because he resisted leaving the room.
“The facts and circumstances of him resisting the officers makes their use of force legitimate,” said Cangelosi, who is now an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
“If he had put his hands up and said, ‘OK. I’m out of here, guys,’ and they still put him on the floor and in handcuffs, then they’d be using too much force,” Cangelosi added.
Secret Service officials told NBC News that they interviewed Padilla after the incident and quickly determined he had no intention to harm Noem.
Secret Service personnel also facilitated a short meeting between Noem and Padilla.
An official told NBC News that its agents “work off pins” to recognize any dignitaries who might be present.
In an interview on MSNBC, Padilla said that the polo shirt he was wearing at the news conference said “United States Senate” and that the FBI agents who were handling him “wouldn’t identify themselves.”
“I kept repeatedly asking them, ‘Why am I being detained?’ No answer,” Padilla said, adding that he also was not told where they were taking him.
