Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that President Donald Trump has set a tone “of escalation and extreme enforcement actions.”
Padilla said, “If all the Trump administration was doing was truly focusing on dangerous, violent criminals, as they suggest, there would be no debate, there would be no disagreement. But we’ve seen story after story after story of hardworking women and men, maybe undocumented, but otherwise law-abiding good people being subject to the terror that the this immigration enforcement operations is subjecting the people to. I needed to speak up. I needed to try to get the information from the secretary that they refuse to provide in hearing after hearing.”
He continued, “The federalization of the National Guard troops and deployment in Los Angeles was not only unlawful, unjustified, but counterproductive. It’s what’s escalated the tensions in Los Angeles, the sending in the Marines as a result. Look, things have been quieting down day after day. So why do you escalate by sending in the Marines?”
Padilla added, “How does the Secretary of Homeland Security not know how to de-escalate a situation? It’s because she can’t or because they don’t want to, and it sets the tone. Donald Trump and Secretary Noem have set the tone for the Department of Homeland Security and the entire administration in terms of escalation and extreme enforcement actions.”
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