Sen. Padilla Forcibly Removed From Kristi Noem's L.A. Press Conference

The California senator was trying to ask about immigration enforcement when federal agents handcuffed and ejected him.

"Why did they get us here if they weren't going to let us in?" grumped a longtime KNX News reporter, one of two dozen media people queued up Thursday morning outside the federal building in West Los Angeles. Unlike the scenes in front of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) building downtown, where hundreds had been gathering since last Friday, there were no protesters around, apparently either not knowing or not caring that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem would be holding a press conference at 10:30 a.m.

By 10:45 a.m., when it became clear we were not going to be let inside, a few of us gathered around an L.A. Times reporter's phone to listen to a live feed coming from a local station. Noem started by thanking law enforcement ("They've been absolute rock stars") and reaffirming the Trump administration's commitment to continuing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, which Noem said had so far resulted in more than 1,200 arrests.

"Let me give you a few examples," she said, citing "a Vietnamese illegal alien who committed a mass shooting at a graduation party in 1994" before her voice was lost under the sound of a scuffle, and someone shouting "I have questions for the secretary," and then "Hands off!"

"What just happened?!" asked the Times reporter as the live feed cut out and then came back.

"Just a moment ago, a remarkable moment, kind of stunning," came an anchor over the feed. "We heard a voice off-camera that appeared to be trying to interrupt this secretary. We panned the camera to see where the disruption came from. It came from United States Senator Alex Padilla….He was taken—he was by force—he was taken outside the room. I've never seen anything like it," continued the anchor. "But that gives you a sense as to the incendiary nature of what we're seeing on the streets."

Maybe. Maybe, as Sen. Lindsay Graham (R–S.C.) later suggested, Padilla "got what he wanted—he's on TV." Or maybe it was as simple as Padilla himself suggested: He had a question, a question he didn't get to ask as FBI personnel and Secret Service agents pushed him into the hall, onto the ground, and handcuffed him.

Whether Padilla's interruption was intentional or not, it derailed the press conference. As ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons was insisting that his department was "focused on gang members, human traffickers, violent drug dealers, and rapists," and Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of FBI Los Angeles, announced they had identified Elpidio Reyna, who had allegedly thrown rocks at federal law enforcement, every journalist in attendance was checking social media or messaging with their editors: Had Padilla really lunged at Noem? Was he under arrest? The possibility that the freshman senator would emerge and make a statement became the day's animating factor. Before the press conference was over, the number of camera crews and reporters had tripled.

Noem herself, after declaring for the second time that federal law enforcement intended to "liberate" the city of Los Angeles, seemed unruffled by the incident.

"I don't even know the senator," Noem said after a reporter asked whether she was going to press charges against Padilla. "He did not request a meeting with me or to speak with me. So when I leave here, I'll have a conversation with him and visit and find out really what his concerns were."

Padilla and Noem apparently did meet, and Noem later said they had a "great" conversation. She appeared upbeat as she left the federal building.

Padilla did not look upbeat as he emerged half an hour later; as he pressed through the scrum of reporters, he looked and sounded beaten down and had a hitch in his voice as he explained what had happened. He had been in the building on a different matter when he learned Noem was there.

"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," said Padilla. "And we've gotten little to no information in response to our inquiries."

Padilla said that while listening to Noem, he had a question and started to ask it. "I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room. I was forced to the ground and I was handcuffed," he said. "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 Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country."

The reactions to this red meat broke along predictable lines. "Trump and his shock troops are out of control," California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, posted on X. Meanwhile, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.) said Padilla "should be prosecuted."

Some marginally broke rank. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R–Alaska) said the video of Padilla being removed was "shocking at every level." She went on to say, "It's not the America I know."

There was one camp that did not express outrage as much as umbrage: the journalists covering the event. After Padilla was escorted to the parking lot, several reporters jawed that it was not the senator's place to storm a press conference, that some of us weren't even able to get inside, and that we don't get to, say, vote on the Senate floor just because we happen to be in the building.

The KNX reporter held out his press pass. "You have one of these?" he asked. "No? Then you're a second-class citizen, Senator. Resign your job and get a press pass, and then you'll be able to ask the questions."