Dear MoveOn member,

“I am Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary.”

Those are the words California’s senator said as multiple armed FBI agents forcibly removed him from a press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem before pushing him to the ground and placing him in handcuffs.¹

They handcuffed a sitting United States senator to stop him from questioning the Trump administration’s cruel anti-immigrant policies. Let that sink in.

Sen. Padilla was in Los Angeles to help respond to the Trump administration’s massive escalation in anti-immigration raids across the state, as well as Trump’s blatantly unlawful use of the military to carry out this program. He was doing exactly what we want our elected officials to do: standing up for the rights of his constituents and opposing Trump’s extremism. And they tried to arrest him for it.

We are so grateful for Sen. Padilla’s willingness to put himself on the line to fight for our rights, which is why we are proud to announce that Sen. Padilla is the newest member of MoveOn’s Democratic Champions Fund.

The goal of the fund is to show those elected officials taking bold stances against the Trump administration that we have their backs. Will you show Sen. Padilla that you have his back by chipping in $9 now? Your donation will be split evenly between Sen. Padilla and MoveOn. (If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately.)

In a speech shortly after the incident on Thursday, Sen. Padilla had this to say about his experience:  

“If this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community, throughout California, and throughout the country.”²

He’s right.

Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s brutal, racist, and cruel anti-immigration policies, recently demanded that ICE officials arrest at least 3,000 undocumented immigrants every single day.³ Following Miller’s orders, ICE is acting indiscriminately to meet this quota.

They’re arresting hard-working mothers who have been in our country for decades and are loved by their communities.⁴

They’re arresting high school students on their way to volleyball practice.⁵

They’re ambushing people at courthouses who are attempting to follow the law and gain legal status.⁶

And they’re deploying the military onto American streets to help them do it.⁷

It’s despicable.

And it is why we need elected officials like Sen. Padilla who are committed to confronting this administration's abuses at every turn.

Will you donate $9 to support Sen. Padilla's work to oppose Trump's cruel anti-immigrant policies and support MoveOn's ongoing efforts to stop the abuses of the Trump administration? (If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately.)

Thanks for all you do.

–Liz, Mohammed, Jaira, Kelly, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "Calif. Senator Forcibly Removed and Handcuffed After Interrupting Noem," The New York Times, June 12, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/12/us/politics/senator-alex-padilla-handcuffed.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2025/06/09/stephen-millers-order-likely-sparked-immigration-arrests-and-protests/

4. "'Carol,' Whose Detention Rattled Her Small Missouri Town, Is Released," The New York Times, June 4, 2025
http://nytimes.com/2025/06/04/us/politics/carol-missouri-migrant.html

5. "How a Massachusetts town became a flashpoint for Trump's immigration crackdown," USA Today, June 11, 2025
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/11/marcelo-gomes-da-silva-milford-ma-immigration/84083774007/

6. "ICE ramps up immigrant arrests in courthouses across U.S.," Axios, June 12, 2025
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/12/ice-courthouse-arrests-trump

7. "National Guard troops are now protecting ICE agents as they make arrests in LA," NBC Los Angeles, June 10, 2025
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/national-guard-troops-protecting-ice-agents/3720717/

Want to support MoveOn's work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it MoveOn needs your ongoing support, now more than ever. Will you stand with MoveOn?

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