Democrat Senator handcuffed after disrupting Homeland Security immigration press conference as Trump reveals major changes to illegal migration response

Sky News AU

20 hours ago

Democratic Senator for California Alex Padilla was dragged out by authorities due to allegedly 'lunging' at Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a press conference on Thursday, as Trump admits his crackdown on illegal immigrants is hurting the US economy.
The incident occurred at a press conference held in the FBI's Los Angeles field office, where Secretary Noem said the DHS was '"staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and this mayor have placed on this country'.
Senator Padilla could be heard loudly shouting over Noem and gradually approaching the lectern where she was speaking.
He was then forcibly removed from the room by Secret Service agents and ordered to put his hands up before being briefly handcuffed on the ground.
The DHS said that Senator Padilla did not initially identify himself as a federal Senator and that he was not wearing his Senate security pin, while the Trump administration said that the Secret Service believed him to be an attacker and that he was 'repeatedly' told to back away.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin labelled the incident as 'disrespectful political theatre' in a statement and said that law enforcement officers acted appropriately.
However, vision from numerous media outlets showed him saying 'I'm Senator Alex Padilla, I have questions for the secretary," before he was hauled from the room.
The pair later met in a private room for 15 minutes and exchanged phone numbers, however Padilla later scorned the DHS response and said in a statement that he was 'forced to the ground' whilst Noem described his statement as 'absolutely ridiculous'.
The altercation comes as thousands of people continue to riot at demonstrations across the United States in opposition to the Trump administrations sweeping Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, with Los Angeles entering its third night under curfew.
President Trump and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the deployment of 700 Marines and 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles, with Texas Governor Greg Abbott also deploying more than 5,000 National Guard troops to quell mounting rioting throughout the state.
The violent clashes between local law enforcement and rioters have led to thousands of arrests in the Los Angeles area since Friday, with hundreds of arrests also made in a dozen US cities including Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Seattle and San Francisco.
However, while Ms Noem stated that federal authorities would stay in Los Angeles to 'build our operations until we make sure that we liberate the city', President Trump admitted that his immigration crackdown was harming major industries and revealed that 'changes are coming'.
In a Truth Social post on Thursday the US President said his administration's 'very aggressive' countrywide immigration raids were putting thousands of American farms and hotels in jeopardy and that concessions needed to be made after receiving complaints from a myriad of industry bodies.
'Our great farmers and people in the hotel and leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long-time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,' Trump wrote.
'In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!"
Later at a White House event Trump addressed the Truth Social post, and told reporters that 'our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know, they have very good workers. They've worked for them for 20 years'.
'They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be, you know, great. And we're going to have to do something about that,' Trump said, referring to undocumented migrants.
'We can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have, maybe not' adding that if long standing migrant workers were deported then farms would 'end up hiring the criminals that have come in'.
Trump said that his administration was 'going to have an order on that pretty soon.'