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Sen. Alex Padilla of California got emotional during his first interview after being forcibly removed from a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Los Angeles on Thursday.
Appearing on “The Beat with Ari Melber,” the Democrat called his ejection by FBI agents “excessive” and “definitely an overreaction,” but stressed that he did not want the incident to overshadow what he says is a larger issue at play.
“This is the biggest point: It’s not about me,” he told Melber and NBC News’ Jacob Soboroff. “If they’re willing to do this to me, a United States senator representing the state of California, just imagine how it’s going with their immigration enforcement on the streets — when they show up at restaurants and are trying to detain a cook, or outside a Home Depot trying to detain a day laborer.”
The senator, whose family came to the U.S. from Mexico, became emotional discussing how Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has affected members of his community.
I understand their sacrifice to just find the American dream.
sen. alex padilla, D-CALIF.
“I understand their plight, I understand their struggle, I understand their sacrifice to just find the American dream: a good opportunity, maybe a good job, the ability to raise a family, and have the next generation have it a little bit better than you,” he said. “And so for all the talk about immigration, you know, the misinformation, disinformation about invasions and insurrections — it’s all BS coming from Trump.
“As I said before, if all they were going to do is target violent, dangerous criminals, true threats to our national security, that would be one thing. Nobody has a disagreement there.”
But Padilla said that is not what’s happening in practice, and he ended the interview by urging Americans to participate in the nationwide protests against the Trump administration planned for this weekend. On Saturday, millions of Americans are expected to come together in about 2,000 cities in all 50 states for the “No Kings” protests.
“First Amendment rights are a beautiful thing, and they need to be utilized,” Padilla said. “There’s a lot of passion out there in some quarters, a lot of fear and anxiety in other quarters, a lot of outrage in other quarters. It’s very patriotic to channel that and to speak up and to demonstrate.”
“Let’s do it peacefully, because that is our right. That’s how, maybe, we shift public opinion. But we can’t cower, that’s what Donald Trump [wants] — he wants us to stay quiet and just stay home.”