When the state uses more force to take down a Latino senator than a suspected assassin | In Conversation

The treatment of U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's security detail carries a different charge and weight for Latinos than it does for others who have watched it.

by Luis F. Carrasco, Helen Ubiñas, and Sabrina Vourvoulias

Published June 18, 2025, 2:08 p.m. ET

Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D., Calif.) addressed his colleagues in Congress about the events of last week when he attempted to ask questions at a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. On June 12, the Mexican American senator was jostled, shoved, and forcibly removed from the news briefing by several security officers, who pushed him first to his knees and then to the ground as they handcuffed him in the hallway outside the room. A video of the incident has been widely shared. The actions have been decried by Democratic Congress members shocked by the treatment of a colleague; the Republican speaker of the House, meantime, has called for Padilla to be censured for “inappropriate” behavior.

The incident carries a different charge and weight for Latinos than it does for others who have watched it play out. Deputy Opinion Editor Luis F. Carrasco, columnist Helen Ubiñas, and Sabrina Vourvoulias, senior editor for commentary, ideas, and community engagement, talk about what the incident calls up for them.

Sabrina Vourvoulias: First things first, have you watched the video?

Helen Ubiñas: Watched it? I’ve replayed it over and over, each time catching another gut-punch detail as I think: That could be my father, my uncles, any number of tall, imposing, proud Latino men who’ve earned respect in a world that often looks down on them. Watching a public official treated like that makes one thing painfully clear: No Latino is safe. Not even those with titles, power, or prestige. If they can do that to Sen. Padilla, imagine what that means for the rest of us? But then, we don’t have to imagine, do we? Deportations in Philly and New Jersey are up 80% since Donald Trump put a target on every brown back. No one is safe — not the undocumented, not the average U.S. citizen, not even those in the public eye.

Vourvoulias: I’ve also watched it more than once, and it makes me furious. That anyone, no matter their occupation, social class, or status, would be treated with such violent disrespect, for having the temerity to ask a public official a question, no less, sets every anti-authoritarian nerve in me jangling. It appears undeniable that Noem felt justified treating Padilla that way because he was a brown person asking her to account for her actions and words — standing unbowed before her — and representing the city she was really hoping to bring to its knees. There has been no contrition for the savage overreaction. (Don’t Republican parents teach their children to apologize when they do wrong?) If anything, officials from the Trump administration, and those in the GOP closely aligned with them, have doubled down, blaming Padilla for his harsh treatment at their hands (just as they blame immigrants for the deportation of their own U.S. citizen children).

Luis F. Carrasco: To be honest, I had not seen the video. I purposefully avoided it because I knew it would be enraging. Watching it now, a few things come to mind. One is that this was the retail version of sending out the National Guard and the Marines to stand against mostly peaceful protesters in Los Angeles — an overreaction designed to intimidate and quell dissent. Another is that while de-escalation is certainly part of law enforcement training, it is mostly ignored in favor of asserting dominance first, no matter what the context. Lastly, the power structure is such that if you look like Padilla, the thought that he could be a U.S. senator is probably not top of mind. Especially when you’re in a room with representatives from an administration that consistently sends the message that brown equals threat.

Ubiñas: The MAGA machine is spinning the Padilla story, scrambling to shift the blame, to reinforce the fantasy that brown people are the threat to this country when the reality is that white men are consistently the biggest source of domestic terror. Long before Trump promised to hunt down “undocumented criminals,” he was already painting brown people as bad people, criminals to be crushed by any means necessary. But when someone who is suspected of committing an actual crime — the white man who’s facing murder charges in the killing of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband — he’s taken in alive and without incident. We can’t ignore the double standards always at play. MAGA’s resident bullies have routinely disrupted everything from school board meetings to the State of the Union address. They’ve disrespected American citizens, fellow lawmakers, and even former presidents — all without consequence. Yet, when a Latino lawmaker simply wants to ask a question, he’s demeaned and dragged away. We should be disgusted and enraged. But what we shouldn’t be — not at this point — is shocked. Because it’s only going to get worse.

Vourvoulias: The Trump administration desperately wants us mute and cowering, and when we aren’t, they will literally and figuratively flex their muscle to try to silence, punish, and otherize us. Have you noticed how the protests in Los Angeles have been characterized as “invaders” rioting? As if none of the millions of first- and second-generation Angelenos are out there protesting the treatment of their immigrant neighbors, friends, and loved ones … Also, the way MAGA world is labeling as anti-American the fact that some protesters carry flags from other countries. (Hello, Irish flags at St. Patrick’s Day parades? Italian flags at St. Gennaro festivals? Ukrainian flags at anti-war demonstrations?) I love this TikTok (and this one, too) shared as a rebuttal to those Trumpian otherization and criminalization narratives.

Ubiñas: Also, let’s not pretend the MAGA cult respects the American flag — or even this country — when they routinely deface it with grotesque images of their dear leader plastered across it.

Carrasco: That’s all part of the double standards you noted earlier. To point out hypocrisy in this administration and its right-wing media enablers is a full-time job guaranteed to drive you mad. Helen, you also mentioned that we shouldn’t be shocked at this point, but I have been at the administration’s naked endorsement of white supremacy. To go back to Padilla, I’m sure we’ve all experienced the feeling of not belonging in a room, and I’m not even talking about impostor syndrome, I’m talking about, well … I was going to say a “white space,” but it’s more like, This is a space of privilege, and what are you doing here? The administration has chosen not only to say the only good immigrant is a white immigrant with its ridiculous carve out for white South African “refugees,” but in its dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts it’s sending the message that people like Padilla — people like us and the majority of Philadelphians — do not belong in, next to, or around power.

Ubiñas: I’m saying this with the utmost love and respect, compadre: How can anyone still be shocked at the administration’s full-chested endorsement of white supremacy? Didn’t that train leave the station after hundreds of neo-Nazis and white supremacists marched on the University of Virginia in 2017 chanting, “You will not replace us”? Or when Trump said of the Unite the Right rally that there were “some very fine people on both sides”?

It boils down to what Sen. Padilla said on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon. Trump is a “tyrant” — y punto. He is doing everything to “test the boundaries of his power” and surrounding himself with a fascist faction of followers. And they will not stop trying to bend anyone — including lawmakers who dare stand up and speak out — to their distorted will. As I type this, New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was just arrested by Trump’s masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for the crime of asking to see a judicial warrant.

Vourvoulias: I’d say they’re going to run out of prison space for all of us who oppose their policies and how they are carrying them out … but then I remember that authoritarians never run out of prison space.

Carrasco: Perhaps it’s naivete (and that’s why I’m shocked at all the racism) or that I’m too soft for prison, but I still hold out hope that the gallows haven’t been built yet for that kind of humor. The situation right now is bad, yes; we’re barely five months into this administration and Trump’s already pitting soldiers against his political enemies — and the U.S. Supreme Court is intentionally looking the other way while the president thumbs his nose at them, but I have faith that we will survive this as a nation.

Ubiñas: I have fleeting, fragile bouts of faith, too — when I’m not overwhelmed by the burning trash bin that is the world. What happened to Padilla is straight-up chilling. But, if I can summon a flicker of faith, his resolve, even while being dragged away, should also serve as a galvanizing example of what needs to be done. Because the truth is that Trump and his cult are never going to wake up one day and realize the harm they’ve caused. They are never going to just stop. I’m reminded here of another powerful moment. On Saturday, Colombian and Dominican R&B singer Nezza defiantly sang the national anthem in Spanish at a Dodgers game after being told to sing it in English. With the LA protests, with family and friends and people who looked like her being dehumanized in neighborhoods just outside the stadium, she said she couldn’t in good conscience comply. It reminds me of the saying: Death often comes by a thousand cuts. Indeed. But salvation — ours, this country’s — can also be forged through a thousand acts of resistance.