United States Sen. Alex Padilla spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday, June 10, criticizing President Donald Trump for causing a crisis by launching Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids across Los Angeles and deploying the National Guard and active-duty service members to the region.
Padilla lambasted Trump, saying he was blaming immigrants to distract from his failed policies, including Republicans’ billionaire-first budget reconciliation bill that would cut critical services like health care and nutrition for millions of working families across the country.
“Just as he’d done so many times before, when things are going bad, when all else fails, what does he do?” Padilla asked. “He turns to scapegoating immigrants, and he decided that this was the time to launch indiscriminate ICE raids throughout the Los Angeles region, clearly not just targeting criminals, but so many others.”
Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections, Trump federalized California’s National Guard without the request and support of the governor for the first time since 1965. Padilla emphasized that this unprecedented move from Trump was designed to “create chaos, in order to escalate tensions in the region and to create a pretext for more extreme actions in the future.”
“There’s two things he wants. He either wants us to be quiet and go away and let him continue to overreach and abuse his power,” Padilla said. “We will not stand for that. We have First Amendment rights, and so let’s peacefully protest. Second, for those who think this is an opportunity to exploit and to turn violent, to vandalize, that’s exactly what Donald Trump wants: any excuse, large or small, to continue to escalate his use of force. Let’s not give him that.”
“To the rest of the country, I urge you to see this for what it is, because when the headline turns on Donald Trump, Donald Trump turns on the American people.”