Christopher Buchanan is a summer intern at the Los Angeles Times, where he covers breaking news as part of its Fast Break team.
Sen. Alex Padilla was detained and forcibly removed by the U.S. Secret Service during a press conference by Dept. of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in Los Angeles on Thursday, another sign of heightening tensions over Trump's immigration raids across California.
Padilla was in the federal building to receive a briefing with Gen. Gregory Guillot, the commander of United States Northern Command, and was listening to Noem's press conference when he tried to ask a question, according to a spokesperson from his office. He shouted 'I am Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,' when authorities forcibly removed him from the meeting room, threw him to the ground and handcuffed him outside the room where the press conference was being held. In a video taken by a Padilla staff member and shared on social media, Padilla held his hands in front of him as the agents pushed him past an office cubicle, then forced him to his knees and then onto the ground, face down. 'On the ground, on the ground, hands behind your back,' one agent said. The officers bent one of Padilla's arms behind his back and attached a handcuff, then said: 'Other hand, sir? Other hand.' One federal agent turned to the staff member filming and said: 'There's no recording allowed out here, per FBI rights.' Addressing reporters after the press conference, Padilla called upon people to peacefully protest the Trump administration's actions. 'There is a lot of concern, there is a lot of tension, there is a lot of anxiety...' he said. 'I encourage everybody to please peacefully protest, just like i was calmly and peacefully listening to that press conference and preparing, attempting to ask a question' The incident comes amid a storm of protest and arrests downtown and intensifying immigration enforcement actions that have thrust Los Angeles into the center of a national immigration debate. Federal officials have vowed to press ahead with a crackdown on workers and residents without proper documents. The immigration sweeps have spread fear and uncertainty across the region and forced some into hiding. Federal agents have been reported outside schools, workplaces and even churches, according to advocates. Noem said during the press conference that federal agents will 'continue to sustain and increase our operations in this city.' 'We are not going away,' she said. 'We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor placed on this country.' Noem's comments were briefly interrupted when Padilla was removed from the press conference. Noem declined to say how many people have been detained and deported over the last week in Los Angeles. She urged people to self-deport. 'We have tens of thousands of targets we will be going after,' she said. As immigration actions continue, Los Angeles Police Department officials report increasing success in quelling violence and property damage in the city's core, thanks in part to an 8 p.m. curfew imposed this week. The number of people taken into custody during the protests declined sharply on Wednesday, down to 81 from 225 a day earlier, according to police. The protests in Los Angeles began Friday when federal immigration officers supported by armored vehicles conducted an immigration raid in the Garment District downtown. The sweep was met with swift and furious backlash from community members, who surrounded the scene to protest the enforcement actions. More confrontations followed over the weekend in Paramount and since then in pockets around the county where agents are detaining immigrants without proper documents — about two-thirds of whom so far have no criminal records, according to White House officials. On Wednesday, masked federal agents detained at least 12 people from businesses in Downey, but community members were able to discourage them from taking one man without proper documents. In a video of the encounter, the unidentified man can be seen sitting on the ground surrounded by masked agents who had chased him down. The man spotted Immigration and Customs Enforcement at his job and rode away on his bicycle, but one of the masked men grabbed his tire, causing him to fall, ABC7 reported. Melyssa Rivas recorded community members peppering federal agents with questions about why they were chasing the man. It's unclear what prompted the agents to leave the scene. 'It looked like a full-on kidnapping scene out of a movie, it was scary,' Rivas told the outlet. Downey Councilman Mario Trujillo said the raids are 'creating a culture of fear' that's prompting people, even with documents, to stay home for fear they could be targeted by federal agents simply for being Latino. The downtown area, which had already been hurting amid a tenuous economy, is now a ghost town, Trujillo said. While he understands that immigration agents have a job to do, Trujillo questions the necessity of grabbing workers trying to support their families and people just trying to go about their daily lives. 'We're supposed to be made to feel safe by this agency because they're removing bad people,' he said. 'That's what they're supposed to be doing.' 'We're starting to feel that we're the only race that's being targeted because it's easy pickings because of the color of our skin,' Trujillo said. 'That's what it's starting to feel like — racial profiling.' Alex Cruz, a 43-year-old Downey resident who has worked at Papa John Car Wash for the past year, said the raids have been so unsettling that many have stopped coming to work. Cruz said the seven or eight undocumented workers who were employed at the car wash stopped showing up two weeks ago. “Everybody is intimidated,” he said. “Everybody is afraid to get out of their house. Everybody is afraid to go to work.” Cruz, the son of undocumented immigrants from El Salvador and Puerto Rico who came to the U.S. in the 1970s, said he's angered by the federal government's portrayal that anyone without documents living in the United States is a criminal. “That’s how they’re categorizing every Hispanic or Latino,” he said. “The president should have a little more humanity. If it wasn’t for immigrants washing their dishes, nobody would do it.” 'This is not right,' he added 'Everyone deserves the opportunity to work and support their families. A lot of these guys are missing out on a paycheck or a salary because of what’s going on right now.” Some are continuing to work despite the uncertainty they feel leaving their homes each day. A man who identified himself only as 'Francisco,' because he was undocumented and feared deportation, said he has been working as a taquero on the outskirts of downtown for over a year. He said he has never felt as worried as he does now, in the shadow of this week's ICE raids. 'We can't go out to work as much on the streets now,' the 23-year-old said in Spanish. 'We've heard from some colleagues who work in other positions, and they've even arrested a couple of them. We go to work afraid they might arrest us.' To stay safe, Francisco said he has limited his movement, turning to Uber Delivery for necessities like groceries and medicine. But he continues to come to work. 'If we don't go out to work, how do we cover our expenses?' he said. As the response from the federal government has ramped up — first bringing in the National Guard and then the Marines — so have the demonstrations. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, the LAPD announced it would be arresting all protesters who remained downtown. Fifteen minutes later, the protest had dwindled to a few dozen demonstrators corralled outside the county courthouse. Seemingly resigned to their fate, protesters began to sit on the road and write the number of bail support on their arms. More than a hundred law enforcement officers surrounded them on the block. Los Angeles police on Wednesday arrested 71 people suspected of failing to disperse and seven people for alleged curfew violations. Two people were arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer and one person was taken into custody on suspicion of resisting a police officer, according to the LAPD. A day earlier, Mayor Karen Bass enacted a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. for most of downtown L.A. in an effort to quell violence and vandalism. That night, 17 people were arrested on suspicion of violating curfew, police said. The curfew, which is expected to remain in place for several days, encompasses the downtown Civic Center, including City Hall, the main county criminal courthouse, LAPD headquarters and federal buildings, which has been the target of protests and resulted in property damage and arrests. As hundreds have protested peacefully for days, some have taken the opportunity to burglarize businesses or hurl things at law enforcement while hidden within the crowd. In an effort to respond, the LAPD has altered some of its tactics. Police are now issuing dispersal orders far earlier in the day and immediately targeting anyone throwing objects, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the planning. Meanwhile, protesters have complained that they are being corralled, or 'kettled,' between lines of police and effectively trapped. The ranks of law enforcement have also been boosted by mutual aid from surrounding police agencies, increasing their effectiveness, officials say. On Wednesday evening, hundreds of protesters marched from Pershing Square to City Hall, where L.A. police warned protesters to leave the area. Dozens of LAPD officers, backed by L.A. County sheriff’s deputies, declared the gathering an unlawful assembly. Authorities fired so-called less-lethal munitions, causing the crowd to scatter. Police on horseback charged into the crowd, and several demonstrators fell to the ground. Officers pushed hundreds of protesters into Gloria Molina Grand Park, where they gathered and began chanting, “Shame.” Times staff writers Andrea Castillo, Laura J. Nelson, Marie Sanford and Richard Winton contributed to this report.
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