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 [Bimbo #2] Noem during a media event related to immigration.
“I am Sen. Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” Padilla told [Bimbo #2] 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.
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Padilla to reporters later Thursday that he was waiting for a scheduled briefing from military officials when he learned [Bimbo #2] 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.”
Bimbo #2 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.
“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 farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,” he said.
In a significant revelation, Secretary [Bimbo #2] Noem announced that the Department of Justice, the DEA, and the FBI, along with their investigative teams, are working with the IRS to track the funding of these protests.
“The IRS here that’s helping us track how these violent protesters are funded, what NGOs out there, what unions, what other individuals may be funding these violent perpetrators that are in these protests,” she stated, asserting that such activities turn otherwise peaceful demonstrations into “very violent activities that go after law enforcement that’s just simply not acceptable.”
[Bimbo #2] Noem was highly critical of California’s state and local leadership, specifically Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass, asserting that residents are “suffering under the policies of Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass.” She stated that federal agents and law enforcement are “working to change that and give them an opportunity to be successful and to live the American dream.”
[Bimbo #2] Noem said, “We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country.”
A federal judge ruled that Donald Trump acted illegally when he commandeered the California national guard and ordered thousands of troops to Los Angeles amid protests over immigration raids. The troops return to the control of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, at noon on Friday.
Outrage and spin are proving the partisan fallout of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) being hauled out of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem‘s press conference Thursday in Los Angeles and handcuffed by federal agents.
After the incident, Padilla explained what occurred when he went to ask [Bimbo#2] Noem a question about the thousands of troops deployed to L.A. and the ramped-up rounding up of undocumented immigrants (and more than a few legal immigrants) by ICE agents in recent weeks.
“I began to ask a question,” Padilla said. “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.”
The clarification about whether California’s senior senator was actually arrested did nothing to lessen the blow that what happened to Padilla is what’s happening to American democracy and immigrant communities.
“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, we can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,” Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, said outside the federal building in West LA this afternoon. “We will hold this administration accountable.”
Fellow Golden State native Kamala Harris was quick to weigh in on what occurred to the man who replaced her in the Senate in 2021 when she became Vice President, calling it “a shameful and stunning abuse of power.”
As [Bimbo#2] Noem spins her own version of events, there has been no confirmation from Padilla’s office of that meeting.
It should be noted that Padilla was identifying himself as a senator as the widely circulated video of the incident confirms. [Bimbo#2] Noem has also met and interacted with Padilla on numerous occasions, especially since the former South Dakota governor was appointed to run DHS.
https://deadline.com/2025/06/alex-padilla-removed-kristi-noem-press-conference-1236432260
Masked ICE agents attempted to arrest a man in Downey during one of three reported raids Wednesday morning, but they let him go after community members intervened.
In a video obtained by Eyewitness News, the man is seen on the ground next to his bike surrounded by federal police.
Community members filmed the attempted arrest and after calling out the federal agents, the man was let go.
According to Downey councilman Mario Trujillo, the man was working when he noticed ICE was at his job. He immediately started riding his bike toward the apartments.
That’s when one of the agents stopped him by grabbing one of the tires, causing him to fall to the ground.
People began shouting for the agents to leave him alone and told the man not to sign anything.
Moments later, the agents let the man go and left.
Melyssa Rivas, who lives in the area, captured the whole thing on camera.
“It looked like a full on kidnapping scene out of a movie, it was scary,” Rivas said. “”My dad has papers, he has his citizenship but he looks just like that man. He’s a full citizen. They stereotyped that man.”
Vincent Scardina supported Donald Trump’s tough stance on immigration at the ballot box. But that decision came back to bite the roofing boss when ICE detained a third of his workforce.
The six men, all from Nicaragua, were pulled over in a work truck on May 27 while heading to a job—and carted off to jail.
According to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, deputies helped transport the men to a local detention facility “for deportation.”
Scardina, who runs a small roofing business in Florida’s Lower Keys, cannot believe it. “It’s quite a shock. You get to know these guys, you become their friends—not just an employer but a friend,” he told NBC6, visibly emotional.
Adding to Scardina’s annoyance, the men had valid work permits and pending asylum applications, according to their attorney Regilucia Smith. “They are legally here,” she said. “Valid work permit, not even close to expired… again, no criminal records—not here, not in Nicaragua.”
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The detained men represented a third of his total staff—devastating in a small labor pool like Key West. “We’re not able…to just replace people as easily as, say, a big city, [with] very limited people to pull from, and then you would have to train them, and that takes sometimes years,” he said.
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Scardina isn’t alone. He says other contractors in the area are being hit hard too. “I know of one landscaper that lost nine or 10 of his whole crew he had and he’s just totally out of business all of a sudden, just like that.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-voter-gets-choked-up-after-ice-detains-a-third-of-his-staff
Gov. Gavin Newsom made the case in a televised address Tuesday evening that President Trump’s decision to send military forces to immigration protests in Los Angeles has put the nation at the precipice of authoritarianism.
The California governor urged Americans to stand up to Mr. Trump, calling it a “perilous moment” for democracy and the country’s long-held legal norms.
“California may be first, but it clearly won’t end here,” Mr. Newsom said, speaking to cameras from a studio in Los Angeles. “Other states are next. Democracy is next.”
“Democracy is under assault right before our eyes — the moment we’ve feared has arrived,” he added.
Mr. Newsom spoke on the fifth day of protests in Los Angeles against federal immigration raids that have sent fear and anger through many communities in Southern California. He said Mr. Trump had “inflamed a combustible situation” by taking over California’s National Guard, and by calling up 4,000 troops and 700 Marines.
“Trump is pulling a military dragnet all across Los Angeles,” Mr. Newsom said. “Well beyond his stated intent to just go after violent and serious criminals, his agents are arresting dishwashers, gardeners, day laborers and seamstresses.”
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Mr. Newsom said the president had taken a “wrecking ball” to the norms of American government by obliterating checks and balances.
“Congress is nowhere to be found,” he said. “Speaker Johnson has completely abdicated that responsibility. The rule of law has increasingly been given way to the rule of Don.”
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But he called on people to stand up to Mr. Trump, whom he compared to leaders in authoritarian countries. He referenced the military parade scheduled for Saturday in Washington, which will honor the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army but also fall on Mr. Trump’s 79th birthday.
“He’s ordering our American heroes, the United States military, and forcing them to put on a vulgar display to celebrate his birthday, just as other failed dictators have done in the past,” Mr. Newsom said.
Governor Newsom called out Trump’s cognitive state after Trump appeared to mis-remember when they last spoke, telling a reporter that he spoke with the California Governor “yesterday” – however Newsom responded confirming he had no contact with Trump yesterday and said he did not even receive a message or voicemail.
Newsom raised concerns on Trump’s health saying Americans should be worried that the president who is sending troops to LA to handle protests cannot remember the last time he spoke on the phone with Newsom. Trump went on to claim Newsom has caused deaths in the LA region – despite no deaths occurring during five days of protests. It comes as Newsom filed an emergency request in federal court Tuesday to block the Trump administration from using the National Guard and Marines to assist with immigration raids in Los Angeles.
Newsom also called into question Trump’s mental state after sending thousands of troops to LA without food, water and sleeping provisions as images circulated of National Guardsmen sleeping on the floor.
https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/newsom-fears-trumps-mental-state-35371199
