California Senator Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a press conference in Los Angeles featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday. The secretary was present to discuss recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the area.
The lawmaker was manhandled out of the room as he attempted to ask Noem a question about ICE.
“I am Senator Alex Padilla,” he can be heard saying as two men grabbed him.
When he was pushed out of a pair of double doors, Padilla was heard shouting, “Hands off!” Multiple men were involved in shoving the lawmaker, before Padilla was handcuffed on the ground by three FBI agents.
Padilla was reportedly ushered out of the room after he told Noem that “you insist on exaggerating,” according to NBC Los Angeles.
The incident didn’t appear to bother Noem, who continued speaking with reporters without missing a beat.
“We are not going away,” Noem said, moments before Padilla was removed, according to Independent reporter Justin Baragona. “We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”
VIDEO of California Sen. Alex Padilla being wrestled and detainedpic.twitter.com/OjfwZO9iMt
— Christopher Cadelago (@ccadelago) June 12, 2025
Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin reported that he and his team witnessed Padilla being “taken to the ground” and detained outside the room. Another angle of the incident showed an FBI agent warning the videographer that recording was not allowed in the hallway, citing FBI regulations.
“When I leave here I’ll have a conversation with him, but I think everyone would agree that wasn’t appropriate,” Noem said.
“When I leave here I’ll find him and visit and find out really what his concerns were. I think everybody in America would agree that that wasn’t appropriate, that if you wanted to have a civil discussion, especially as a leader, a public official, that you would reach out and try to have a conversation,” she added.
The lawmaker’s detention follows days of protests across Los Angeles, in which thousands of Angelinos have taken to the streets to visibly reject the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda.
Senator Padilla’s office sends me this video of his take-down and detention at Sec. Noem’s press conference in L.A. pic.twitter.com/RLUVYP1Jsb
— Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) June 12, 2025
Protesters have blocked off major freeways, trashed Waymos (self-driving cars), and organized outside City Hall and the Metropolitan Detention Center. In reaction, law enforcement officials shot rubber bullets and fired tear gas and flash bangs into crowds of civilians. The FBI added protesters suspected of throwing rocks at police cars to its Most Wanted list and issued an ominous threat Monday to intervene in the anti-Trump display without guidance from California or the White House.
Hours later, California sued the federal government to roll back Trump’s deployment of 4,100 National Guard members that state authorities said had not been authorized or requested to handle the protests. California Governor Gavin Newsom slammed Trump’s decision as “illegal” and a “brazen abuse of power” that had only further “inflamed a combustible situation.
“When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard. he made that order apply to every state in this nation,” Newsom said. “This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next.”
In another decision that nobody responsible for overseeing peace in Los Angeles wanted, Trump additionally deployed 700 Marines to the City of Angels, an initiative that Defense officials revealed Tuesday would cost U.S. taxpayers $134 million.
The president had also claimed that the Los Angeles Police Department had requested the White House’s assistance—a claim that Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell vehemently refuted.
Trump also endorsed threats to arrest Newsom when the California governor began to hit back, telling reporters that he’d “do it.”
This story has been updated.
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