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There are incidents that serve as perfect metaphors for a historical moment. The image of our first Latino U.S. Senator, Alex Padilla, mistreated and pushed to the ground with his hands about to be handcuffed by a group of federal agents is one of them.
It’s an image deeply familiar in the history of the United States of America: a man of color, a brown-skinned man, on the ground under a police boot. What’s unusual about that?
What matters here is that he is a federal senator, an elected member of one of the most important political and legislative bodies in the country. And that mistreatment was unjustified, especially given who he is.
Padilla, who was in the federal building in Los Angeles to receive a military report on these tragic days of protests and the militarization of the city, walked into a press conference being held by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
When Padilla raised his voice, identifying himself as a senator and attempting to ask a question, there was no hesitation: they strike first and ask questions later.
And that’s exactly what we’re seeing from this government, from the presidency of Donald J. Trump: if a brown man, even a sitting senator, gets shoved and abused by federal authorities simply for doing his job, what’s left for the rest of us?
In these tragic days for American democracy, and especially for all of us immigrants who have made a home in Los Angeles, seeing the first Latino U.S. senator treated like a criminal is a powerful metaphor for how this government is treating all immigrants.
What’s left for the farmworker? The laborer? The day worker? What’s left for immigrant families arrested at their jobs, in their schools, in their homes, under the excuse that they’re criminals—when what they really are is hardworking families?
The abuse of power that took place in those few minutes against Alex Padilla is just a fraction of what this government is doing—and wants to do—to all those who offend the racist sensibilities of the people we’ve unfortunately elevated to the most powerful office in the country, and in the world.
Curiously, this incident sparked stronger responses from the Democratic leadership than anything that’s happened so far, perhaps because now they realize it could happen to them too.
Because in the reality of this country today, June 12, 2025, in the United States of America, the real crime is to be part of the group targeted by the ruling class: immigrant, brown-skinned, foreign, dissident, protester… and those who know the history of the world understand that group is only going to keep growing.
