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A US senator was forcibly removed and handcuffed by FBI agents at a press conference held by homeland security secretary Kristi Noem in Los Angeles on Thursday, in a dramatic escalation of tensions in California.
Men in plain clothes pushed Alex Padilla, the Democratic senator from California, from the room as Noem spoke to reporters at the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles.
Video of the altercation showed FBI agents wrestling Padilla to the ground outside the room and handcuffing him, after he had identified himself as a US senator.
Footage showed Padilla interrupting the press conference to ask Noem “why you insist on exaggerating and embellishing” before he was accosted.
Padilla later told reporters outside the federal building that he was “almost immediately forcibly removed from the room” after he began to ask his question.
“I was forced to the ground, and I was handcuffed. I was not arrested. I was not detained,” he said.
“I will say this: if this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question . . . you can only imagine what they are doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day labourers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,” Padilla added. “We will hold this administration accountable.”
The altercation involving a member of Congress and federal agents marked a new escalation after days of tensions in Los Angeles, where the Trump administration has ordered the deployment of National Guard troops and US Marines to help in an anti-immigration crackdown.
Protests have sprung up in Los Angeles and across the country in opposition to the White House’s efforts to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor on Thursday: “I just saw something that sickened my stomach, the manhandling of a United States senator. We need immediate answers to what the hell went on.”
Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat, added: “This is the stuff of dictatorships.”
Noem, who was addressing events in the city, told reporters at the press conference that Padilla’s actions were inappropriate.
“I don’t even know the senator,” she said, adding she would “have a conversation with him and visit and find out, really, what his concerns were”.
“I think everybody in America would have to 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,” Noem said.
She later told Fox News that she had met Padilla after the altercation and they had exchanged telephone numbers.
A spokesperson for the department of homeland security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Spokespeople for the Department of Justice and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Additional reporting by Stefania Palma in Washington
www.ft.com
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