{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/watch-padilla-walks-out-of-sham-immigration-subcommittee-hearing-on-attacks-by-the-radical-left/", "WATCH: Padilla Walks Out of Sham Immigration Subcommittee Hearing on Attacks by the \u201cRadical Left\u201d", "2025-11-19", "2025", "2025-11", "Democrat", "Senate", "CA", "Alex Padilla", "P000145", "www.padilla.senate.gov", "padilla", "https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, spoke at Senate Republicans\u2019 subcommittee hearing titled, \u201cICE Under Fire: The Radical Left\u2019s Crusade Against Immigration Enforcement.\u201d Padilla emphasized that violence against law enforcement is never acceptable, but Republicans\u2019 partisan hearing was an outrageous attempt to deflect from the Administration\u2019s consistent excessive use of force and racial profiling during immigration enforcement actions across the country, while parroting the Administration\u2019s unsubstantiated claims to justify President Trump\u2019s mass deportation agenda.\n\nWithout any government witnesses to testify or data to back up the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s (DHS) claims of a large spike in assaults on its officers and agents, Padilla reiterated that the hearing was \u201cnot a serious attempt to protect law enforcement\u201d or conduct oversight. Padilla has submitted requests to DHS for months to back up their statements of a \u201c500%,\u201d \u201c1,000%,\u201d and now \u201c8,000%\u201d increase in assaults and death threats against their agents and officers, but DHS has refused to provide the underlying data.\n\nAt the same time, Padilla stressed that while DHS claims to be going after \u201cthe worst of the worst\u201d violent criminals, over 70 percent of those currently detained in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody have no criminal record. Yet ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) continue violently abusing their power against individuals, including American citizens and hardworking long-term immigrants, in cities throughout the nation.\n\nVideo of Padilla\u2019s remarks before walking out of the hearing can be seen here and can be downloaded here.\n\nPadilla\u2019s full remarks, as delivered, are available below:\n\nGood afternoon, thank you Mr. Chairman.\n\nLet me first say that violence against law enforcement is never okay.\n\nI speak for all my Democratic colleagues on the committee and the Senate for that matter in saying so. Violence against law enforcement is never okay.\n\nAnd I will continue to emphasize that as we have in the past, we will today, and in the future if for no other reason because many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle suggest and accuse Democrats of believing otherwise.\n\nBut for today\u2019s hearing, let me begin with a very simple question: Why are we here?\n\nAre we here truly to conduct oversight and find ways to actually improve the situation and public safety in our communities? Or are we simply here to throw more fuel on the political fire?\n\nToday\u2019s hearing title tells us all we need to know: \u201cThe Radical Left\u2019s Crusade Against Immigration Enforcement.\u201d\n\nThat doesn\u2019t exactly set the stage for a productive, serious conversation about how we both protect law enforcement officials and improve public safety.\n\nIt\u2019s the title of the next exercise in Republican political theater. That\u2019s really what\u2019s happening here.\n\nSo let me once again say that violence against law enforcement is never okay.\n\nBut I refuse to sit back as this committee attempts to use or condone the use of law enforcement as a shield for abuses of power by this Administration.\n\nIf today\u2019s hearing was indeed a serious effort to protect our law enforcement, we would have government witnesses testifying before us today and fielding our questions as a committee.\n\nBut that\u2019s not the case.\n\nIf today\u2019s hearing was a serious effort, those government witnesses would be providing facts and data behind the numbers that the Department of Homeland Security so often cites to claim an increase in assaults on its officers and agents.\n\nBut even after repeated requests, months and months of request from my office and from others to the Department of Homeland Security to back up their claims of \u2014 is it \u201c500%?\u201d Is it \u201c1,000%?\u201d Now we\u2019re even hearing claims of up to \u201c8,000%\u201d increase in assaults or death threats \u2014 they have refused to provide them.\n\nMr. Chairman, you\u2019re very well aware of this. You and I discussed this last week. And as far as I can tell, they\u2019ve even refused your requests for data and statistics.\n\nWhy am I insisting on this? Why am I making this point?\n\nBecause that data is critical. Not only would it allow us to actually verify their claims, but that data would be critical to informing our policy response.\n\nSo no, today\u2019s hearing is not a serious attempt to protect law enforcement.\n\nIt\u2019s designed to fuel the propaganda machine and encourage even more brutal immigration enforcement operations.\n\nIt\u2019s designed to cover up for the fact that after President Trump pledged to go after the worst of the worst, this we do know from DHS statistics: over 70 percent of those currently detained in ICE custody have no criminal record.\n\nIf they were simply focused on those truly dangerous, violent criminals, there would be no objection, there would be no debate, there would be no discussion. But the reality is far from their claims.\n\nAt the same time, what we are seeing every day is new acts of brutality and misuse of force in communities across the country.\n\nBut my guess is that today, you won\u2019t be hearing about the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s violent take downs of peaceful, hardworking long-term immigrants who don\u2019t have that violent criminal record that the Administration wants you to believe.\n\nAnd I\u2019m not just making this up. There\u2019s case after case, including a deaf DACA recipient who had his hands cuffed and his phone taken away so he couldn\u2019t communicate as he was shoved into the back of a car.\n\nYou won\u2019t hear about the journalists who were threatened and assaulted, one so severely in New York they had to be hospitalized.\n\nYou won\u2019t hear about the clergy being shot in the head with a pepper ball or arrested for attempting to administer the sacrament of communion to the faithful at a detention facility.\n\nAnd you won\u2019t hear about the 170 American citizens \u2014 there\u2019s probably more, but that\u2019s what\u2019s been documented \u2014 caught up in these chaotic immigration raids. American citizens caught up in these raids.\n\nEven as Secretary Noem lies and \u2026 when she says that no American citizens have been detained, every week, we read new reports about another American who\u2019s had their neck kneeled on, their door blown off, or their window smashed, and even a pregnant woman in Florida \u2014 a United States citizen \u2014 who was thrown to the ground during an arrest, and who later miscarried. This is happening every day across the country.\n\nMasked agents have become so emboldened that even a Reagan-appointed federal judge recently wrote, and I\u2019ll quote: \u201cIn all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police \u2026 carrying on in this fashion.\u201d\n\nNow, this Administration ignores the fundamental rights to due process every day as it carries out this authoritarian enforcement agenda, and instead has replaced it with the idea that if you look or talk a certain way, that\u2019s enough for you to be detained or even deported before you have a day in court.\n\nThat\u2019s not just morally wrong; it\u2019s an attack on our fundamental liberties and the rule of law in the United States of America.\n\nBut again, Republicans don\u2019t want to discuss any of this. Why? Out of fear of crossing the President and his outrage machine.\n\nAmericans have had enough.\n\nThey\u2019re sick of masked agents disrespecting daycares, schools, and churches, disappearing loved ones, and intimidating our communities.\n\nAmericans are demanding that we do something.\n\nSo, Mr. Chairman, it\u2019s clear to me that this hearing will not be a serious or constructive conversation.\n\nAnd for that reason, I refuse to give oxygen to the fire of disinformation and propaganda that this hearing was set up to ignite.\n\nAnd I refuse to be part of this charade.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/watch-padilla-walks-out-of-sham-immigration-subcommittee-hearing-on-attacks-by-the-radical-left/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8660182356834412, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}