In a bizarre moment that came during a hearing on immigration enforcement before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Wednesday, November 19, far-left United States Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) went berserk and slammed down his notebook before storming out of the contentious hearing.
For reference, the hearing was conducted by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration. Centered on the topic of “ICE Under Fire: The Radical Left’s Crusade Against Immigration Enforcement”, the hearing focused on how the Democrats have worked to obstruct and oppose ICE.
It was in that context that Sen. Padilla had his shouting, throwing meltdown and rudely stormed out of the hearing as the cameras rolled. In fact, he did so with his opening statement, yelling and causing chaos from the start rather than calmly and helpfully questioning any of the distinguished witnesses present.
Doing so, Padilla shouted in his opening remarks that ICE agents are not enforcers of the law, but effectively a secret police force that grabs Americans off the streets without reason or warning. Making that delusional, shouted assertion, he said, “Americans have had enough. They’re sick of masked agents disrespecting daycares, schools and churches, disappearing loved ones and intimidating our communities.”
Continuing, the ranting and raving woke senator insisted that the subcommittee hearing would not be “constructive” and then stormed out before giving it a chance. He declared, “It’s clear to me that this hearing will not be a serious or constructive conversation, and for that reason, I refuse to give oxygen to the fire of disinformation that this hearing was set up to ignite.”
It was Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), himself something of a moderate who is disliked by his more conservative constituency, who had to respond to the ridiculous senator and his inappropriate antics before the gathered crowd there for the subcommittee hearing.
Doing so as Sen. Padilla slammed his notes on the bench and stormed out, Sen. Cornyn said,“Well, Senator Padilla, I think you saying we are not discussing a lot of those items but I think you just raised a lot of interesting questions that I’d be happy to discuss.” Watch the embarrassing spectacle occur here:
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Speaking to NOTUS after the bizarre incident, the senator insisted that he had to storm out because the officials who he wanted to be there were not there. He snapped, “If there’s a serious conversation, we’d have government officials participating as witnesses, fielding questions. There’s no representative from the Department of Homeland Security here. There’s no representative of ICE here to engage in meaningful conversation.”
Continuing, the still fury-filled senator chomped at his bit while insisting that the officials he wanted to be at the subcommittee hearing were absent as a deliberate slight to make the whole thing unproductive. Pushing that theory, he snapped, “And that’s not a coincidence. That’s very, very intentional. They refuse to be productive and constructive.”
Ignored by the senator was that the number of attacks against ICE agents and similar immigration officials have risen tremendously in recent months as the Trump Administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration continues and expands into new, generally Democratic-leaning areas.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video