Things looked tense in Los Angeles on Thursday, even before federal agents dropped the American senator Alex Padilla.
We had the Marines, somewhat trained in a domestic crowd control, on the way to Crowd Control. We had ice raids and sweep a man from a church. Or maybe it was ice – the armed and masked agents refused to say where they came from.
But then the situation went further to the south, what to be honest, I thought it would take at least until Monday.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Name was in the city to cosplay because she was an ice agent herself. You know she likes to dress. Padilla, who was in the same building to meet a general, went to a press conference she organized and tried to ask her a question.
Bad idea.
Federal agents handed him out of the room, pushed him to his knees and fascinated him. The FBI has confirmed to my colleagues that he was not arrested, but that is little comfort.
Although officers may not knew that Padilla was an American senator when they started to start, they certainly did that by the time the cuffs break.
Padilla was heard and said, “Hands off, hand out. I’m Senator Alex Padilla”, while the officers pushed him back.
The hands stayed on.
Shortly after the video of this terrifying episode, Social Media, Gov. Gavin Newsom Posted on X“If they can fascinate an American senator to ask a question, imagine what they will do to you.”
Indeed.
After the press conference, Neme offered a sorry-not-sorry.
“I wish he would have reached and identified himself and let us know who he was and that he wanted to talk,” she told reporters. “His approach, you know, was something I don’t think it was appropriate, but the conversation was great and we will continue to communicate.”
It was great! Send the Marines!
When asked why she had ordered the removal of Padilla, Neem was postponed to law enforcement.
“I will let the law enforcement speak how this situation is handled, but I will say that people have to identify themselves before they start to recover at these times during the press conference,” she said.
“Lunging.”
It starts to feel like being brown in America is a crime. Brown man is said to be Lungen, the new black man who drives – scary enough that every reaction is justified.
Senator Adam Schiff, our other senator in California, came to the defense of his colleague and demanded an investigation.
“Everyone who looks at it – everyone – everyone who looks at this, it will turn your belly,” he said. “To watch this video and see what happened – smells – from totalitarianism. This is not what democracies do.”
Political expert Mike Madrid pointed out how personal this issue of immigration is for Padilla.
Padilla is the son of Mexican immigrants, Santos and Lupe Padilla. He went to politics in 1995 because of the anti-immigrant Stelling 187The California measure that all people without papers made of many public services, including schools. Since then he has been a champion of immigrant communities.
“Hard to describe how angry and passionate Senator Alex Padilla is – I have known him for 25 years and have never seen anything like that,” wrote Madrid Online. “He is a living example of how Latinos feel now.”
And not just Latinos – all Americans who care about democracy.
We are about to have about 3000 hours of debate about whether Padilla earned what he got because he was not invited to the press conference.
The right wing is going to pars the video in search of that failure and say that Padilla was aggressive. The left will say that he has the right to ask questions, even a duty because he is an elected representative whose voters are held and disappeared, even those who are American citizens.
I will say that I really don’t care if you are pro-trump or pro-padilla.
If you care about our constitution, for the right process, for civil rights, it must look at an American senator on his knees to ask questions are a frightening wake-up call.
It turns out that it is true: after they have come for the vulnerable, they indeed come for the rest.
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