[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 101 (Thursday, June 12, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Page S3368]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              ALEX PADILLA

  Mr. LUJAN. Mr. President, I am sure the American people right now are 
just starting to see what happened to the U.S. Senator from 
California--the senior Senator from California--Alex Padilla. He is at 
a press conference in California, where the Secretary of Homeland 
Security is, and he wants to ask some questions, with all that is going 
on in California. Look, I don't know what all happened, but Federal 
agents took him down--took down a U.S. Senator--saying that they are 
doing their job.
  Why aren't more people down here speaking up about this nonsense?
  This is ridiculous. I would use some other language, but I would 
probably get tossed off the floor right now.
  Growing up on a small farm and cleaning a barn, my dad taught me how 
to take a shovel to all the stuff that came out of the animals. You 
know what that is called. I know what it is called. And some of the 
animals that did that were males. They were bulls. And the stuff that 
came out of them has a few names to it. I will call it manure today.
  This is nonsense. This is awful. How can these Federal agents get 
away with this?
  Is the President of the United States telling folks to go down and 
start arresting U.S. Senators, taking them down to the floor? Is that 
what we have come to, the executive branch doing this to our 
colleagues?
  This is a Democrat. What happens when it happens to a Republican? 
Will I hear from my Republican colleagues then to say: No, we should 
not do this, Mr. President. Back down. Back off. You are wrong.
  Will someone here have the backbone to tell the President of the 
United States: You crossed the line. Stop it.
  I am so disappointed, so disappointed. And as a Latino U.S. Senator, 
for this to happen to another Hispanic here--there are several of us 
who are Hispanics here, Democrats and Republicans. Speak up.
  When one of my predecessors was here, Dennis Chavez, there were 
places he could not eat in this town because of the color of his skin, 
because he was from a State called New Mexico.
  Are we going to use our voices? Are we better than this in the United 
States of America? Or are we going to show all the other folks in the 
world who choose to do this to the people who were duly elected by 
their people: No, just go arrest them. Throw them down on their face. 
Treat them like garbage.
  We are better than this in America, you all. We have got to speak up. 
I hope, by tonight, every Democrat and Republican Member of this body 
has the courage to say something. This has gone too far. It is not 
right.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.

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