Men involved in a tense confrontation in an indoor setting.
California Sen. Alex Padilla is pushed out of the room as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem holds a news conference regarding protests in Los Angeles on June 12, 2025. (Photo by Etienne Laurent/Associated Press)

California Sen. Alex Padilla, a frequent critic of the Trump administration and its actions toward immigrants, was forcibly removed from a Department of Homeland Security press conference in Los Angeles on Thursday morning.

Video from the event shows security guards grabbing and shoving the U.S. Senator out the door as he attempts to ask DHS Secretary Kristi Noem a question. He was then cuffed.

Here's another angle from Fox News reporter Bill Melugin of Sen. Alex Padilla getting roughed up by law enforcement after he tries to question Kristi Noem at her presser: “I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary. Because the fact of the matter is, a half dozen… Hands off!”

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— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona.bsky.social) June 12, 2025 at 11:11 AM

A short time later, Padilla emerged from the federal building and spoke to reporters, stressing that he was not arrested.

“Since the beginning of the year, but especially over the course of recent weeks, I and several of my colleagues have been asking the Department of Homeland Security for more information and more answers on their increasingly extreme immigration enforcement actions, and we’ve gotten little to no information in response to our inquiries,” Padilla said.

“And so 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. … I was there peacefully. At one point I had a question, and so I began to ask a question. I was immediately forcibly removed from the room. I was forced to the ground, and I was handcuffed. I was not arrested. I was not detained.

“I will say this — 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 farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country. We will hold this administration accountable.”

Asked about the incident, Noem said she was unaware that Padilla was going to be in attendance at her news conference, and said she had not received any request from him or his office to speak with her. She called Padilla’s actions at the news conference “inappropriate,” but said she planned to speak with him.

“I don’t even know the senator. He did not request a meeting with me or to speak with me,” Noem said. “So when I leave here I’ll have a conversation with him and find out really what his concerns were. I think everybody in America would agree that that was inappropriate.”

Reactions from California Democrats were swift.

Rep. Sara Jacobs was among San Diego-area elected officials who expressed major concerns over the actions of the guards.

Rep. Scott Peters echoed her concerns, calling the actions “outrageous.”

“Obviously we will have response,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the U.S. Capitol. “But I want to know the facts, find out exactly what happened.”

Meanwhile, Noem said that the federal government intends to “liberate” Los Angeles from “socialists.” She specifically highlighted the waving of Mexican flags by some protesters.

Noem said that immigration authorities will continue to carry out arrests of people in the country illegally who have criminal records, and that protesters who engage in vandalism and violence will “face consequences.”

This story was updated on Thu., June 12, 2025, at 12:50 p.m. Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this report.