Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, was forcibly removed on Thursday from a news conference being held by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and handcuffed after he pushed past guards at a federal building in West Los Angeles.
“Sir! Sir! Hands off!” Mr. Padilla, 52, shouted as federal agents tried to muscle him out of the room where Ms. Noem was speaking inside a government office building about 15 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. “I am Senator Alex Padilla. I have a question for the secretary.”
As Mr. Padilla — an M.I.T. graduate, the son of Mexican immigrants and a Los Angeles native — began questioning the authenticity of a bank of mug shots behind Ms. Noem, agents shoved him out of the room, told him to drop to his knees in a hallway and handcuffed him, based on videos taken by Mr. Padilla’s office and a Fox News reporter.
A small group of reporters pivoted their cameras toward the disruption. Other national and local journalists were forced to wait outside the building after officials blocked access to the news conference shortly before the event began.
In the tense hyperpartisanship of the moment, the incident quickly swelled into a cause celebre for both parties. Democratic senators, House members and governors rushed to denounce the treatment of a sitting senator, framing it as the latest escalation in authoritarian actions by the Trump administration. It came after the indictment on Tuesday of Representative LaMonica McIver of New Jersey and the arrest of Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, after both tried to visit a new immigration detention facility in the city.
Republicans just as eagerly tried to frame Mr. Padilla’s behavior as in line with what they have said is the lawlessness of the political left as President Trump tries to crack down on illegal immigration.
Ms. Noem had been at a podium thanking the U.S. Army, the Marines and the National Guard for providing “security” when Mr. Padilla made his entrance. While some protests have erupted in downtown Los Angeles, the towering white federal building where her news conference occurred was more than 15 miles away from the action and had no protesters outside.
Mr. Padilla told reporters that he learned of Ms. Noem’s news conference while he was waiting for a scheduled briefing down the hall. He said he had asked for answers about the administration’s “increasingly extreme” immigration actions and had not been able to get them.
“I came to the press conference to hear what she had to say to see if I could learn any new additional information. And at one point, I had a question,” he said. “And so I began to ask a question. I was almost immediately, forcibly removed from the room.”
Mr. Padilla was not detained, and he had a conversation with the secretary for about 10 to 15 minutes after the news conference, Ms. Noem said.
She said that it was inappropriate for him to approach without identifying himself. “I will say that people need to identify themselves before they start lunging at people,” she said.
According to the footage that was posted, the senator did identify himself, loudly, as he walked into the room, but Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said that he had not been wearing his Senate security pin and that the U.S. Secret Service had taken him for an attacker. She accused him of engaging in “disrespectful political theater.”
The senator said that the way he was treated as a sitting member of Congress has raised his level of concern for how the federal government has begun to treat everyday people under the Trump administration.
“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,” he said appearing to briefly be overcome with emotion.
The middle child of a short-order cook from Jalisco, Mexico, and a housekeeper from Chihuahua, Mr. Padilla was earning his way through school with janitorial jobs and work-study programs when his plan to become an aerospace engineer was derailed by the anti-immigrant politics that gripped California during the 1990s.
Galvanized by Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot initiative that would have barred undocumented immigrants from public services including schools and nonemergency health care, he became involved in politics.
Though they represent the nation’s largest state in Congress’s high chamber, Mr. Padilla and the newly elected Adam Schiff still cut a low profile in the Senate. The events of Thursday could provide a political boost to Mr. Padilla, who was initially appointed to his seat by Gov. Gavin Newsom after then-Senator Kamala Harris became vice president in 2021.
Thursday’s episode stoked intense outrage in Los Angeles, where the ordinarily soft-spoken and slow-talking Mr. Padilla has long been a popular figure. On social media, Mayor Karen Bass called his treatment “absolutely abhorrent and outrageous” and reiterated a demand she has made since a series of militarized immigration enforcement actions started in Southern California last Friday: “This administration’s violent attacks on our city must end.”
Gov. Newsom jumped in, calling the senator “one of the most decent people I know.”
“This is outrageous, dictatorial, and shameful,” Mr. Newsom wrote in a social media post. “Trump and his shock troops are out of control. This must end now.”
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, broke ranks with her party, calling what happened “very disturbing,” though she acknowledged she was unsure what led to the confrontation. “It looks like he is being manhandled and physically removed. It is hard to imagine a justification for that.”
More in line with Republican reaction was Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the majority leader, who told reporters in the Capitol that Mr. Padilla was in Los Angeles trying to “make the situation worse” and “stir angst against the federal agents who were coming to help” the city.
Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, addressed the Senate floor regarding the treatment of Mr. Padilla.
“I just saw something that sickened my stomach,” he said. “The manhandling of a United States Senator. We need immediate answers to what the hell went on.”
Carl Hulse contributed reporting.
Shawn Hubler is The Times’s Los Angeles bureau chief, reporting on the news, trends and personalities of Southern California.
Jill Cowan is a Times reporter based in Los Angeles, covering the forces shaping life in Southern California and throughout the state.
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