Alex Padilla U.S. Senator for California

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, joined a bicameral spotlight forum to denounce the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) unlawful arrests of U.S. citizens. U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ranking Member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and U.S. Representative Robert Garcia (D-Calif.-42), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, convened the forum to receive testimony from five of these American citizens, including three Californians, whom DHS agents have violently arrested and detained.

DHS continues to lie about its treatment of American citizens. In October, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem falsely claimed, “[t]here’s no American citizens that have been arrested or detained,” and the account @DHSgov posted just last week, “ICE does NOT arrest or deport U.S. citizens.” On the contrary, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in California and across the country have repeatedly arrested and detained American citizens, including veterans, at times using violent physical force.

Padilla emphasized that the Trump Administration’s militarization of American cities, starting with Los Angeles, to conduct indiscriminate immigration enforcement was the test case for President Trump’s mass deportation campaign across the country. ICE and CBP agents have repeatedly violated due process rights and profiled individuals — including U.S. citizens — who they claim “look like” noncitizen enforcement targets.

Padilla asked all five U.S. citizens at the spotlight forum what they would say if President Trump, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, or other Trump Administration officials were in front of them. He heard emotional pleas from California witnesses to stop scapegoating immigrants and racially profiling American citizens. The witnesses included:

• Javier Ramirez (California): Mr. Ramirez was violently assaulted by DHS agents and held for four days, where he was denied adequate treatment for diabetes, leading to severe complications.
• George Retes (California): Mr. Retes is a U.S. Army veteran who was violently arrested and detained during a raid at his job site in Southern California and detained for three days, during which he was refused the ability to contact his family and missed his daughter’s birthday.
• Andrea Velez (California): Ms. Velez was on her way to work in downtown Los Angeles when she got caught up in an immigration raid and was falsely charged with assaulting an officer, a charge that was later dropped. 
• Wilmer Chavarria (Vermont): Mr. Chavarria, a school superintendent, was detained after returning to the United States from visiting family overseas, interrogated for hours, and even faced demands to search his personal and school district devices, which contained sensitive information about students and faculty.
• Dayanne Figueroa (Illinois): Ms. Figueroa was sideswiped while driving to work and then violently pulled from her car by DHS agents who pointed guns at her; while detained for hours, she suffered internal trauma, having recently undergone two kidney surgeries weeks before the incident, as well as injuries to her wrists from being handcuffed.

Padilla also heard from Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council, about how the Trump Administration’s diversion of resources to immigration enforcement makes all Americans less safe.

Key Excerpts:

• PADILLA: If you had the Administration up here, if you had Donald Trump, if you had the Secretary of Homeland Security, if you had other officials from the Trump Administration up here, what would you tell them?

• WILMER CHAVARRIA: I would say that we’ve seen this before. We see it right through you. We’ve seen leaders dehumanize entire communities, entire races, entire peoples. And we know why you dehumanize us. And I will say, we will come out of this, and we will come out of it stronger.

• JAVIER RAMIREZ: They should be ashamed of themselves. I don’t want to raise my kids in an America where they have to be careful, you know, just by being their skin color.

• PADILLA: Mr. Melnick, I know you come to this conversation from a different perspective given your role and expertise. Let me ask you a different question. … The argument from the Administration is that they’re going after the worst of the worst. We see in reality that that’s far from the case. The fear and intimidation they’ve stoked in so many communities across the country is clear in my mind. Has this mass deportation agenda made any community or country safer?

• MELNICK: There’s no evidence that this is making us more safe. In fact, it’s the other way around. I testified in front of Congress on this issue before. By diverting resources away from child exploitation, by turning ICE Homeland Security Investigations into just one other arm of ICE’s enforcement and removal operations, they are making us less safe. They are taking counterterrorism operatives and telling them to go out on the street and arrest migrants. They’re taking people whose job it is to investigate pedophiles preying on children, and telling those officers to go round up dishwashers instead. And that doesn’t make us safer.

Video of Padilla’s remarks and questioning is available here.

Senator Padilla has been a leading voice in opposition to President Trump’s cruel and indiscriminate mass deportation agenda. He has denounced the Trump Administration’s stops, arrests, detentions, and deportations of U.S. citizens and pressed Secretary Noem on the wrongful targeting of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. In July, Padilla joined a Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee hearing to set the record straight on President Trump and Stephen Miller’s cruel mass deportation campaign, blasting the Administration for intentionally stoking fear and scapegoating immigrants. In September, Padilla joined 60 of his Senate and House colleagues in opening a new investigation into the Trump Administration’s arrests, detentions, and deportations of noncitizen service members, veterans, and military families.

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