Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S.A. – Asking the wrong questions in America eventually ends up with you face down, hands behind your back, in handcuffs.
At least that was the case with Democratic U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California.
Listen to an audio recording of this article:
Padilla, a Democrat, was attending a Department of Homeland Security press conference about immigration policies in Los Angeles. He was about to ask DHS Secretary Kristi Noem questions about the federal immigration raids being conducted throughout California.
As he entered the room, he walked towards her. As federal security agents confronted him, he said, “I am Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary.”
Several men rushed to shove him out of the room and forcibly held him back as he tried to break free. Agents from both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service were present.
Padilla continued to state his case, “because the fact of the matter is that half a dozen violent criminals that you’re rotating on…”
He was abruptly silenced as the agents forced him to lie on the ground as they handcuffed his hands behind his back.
After the incident, Padilla said, “If this is how the administration responds to a senator with a question, 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 and throughout California, and throughout the country.”
The modern cultural mosaic that is America – a country founded by immigrants and built on diversity – has now been boiled down to a place where police forcibly restrain a U.S. senator for simply trying to ask a question.
This was not a failure of protocol. This was one of the many symbols of the falling democracy our government has failed to uphold.
For many years, protestors, activists, politicians and others have continued to represent the minorities in the face of the civil injustices that have seeped their way into the system. The system has always fought back with heavily imbalanced power to silence those who speak up.
The Preamble to the Constitution itself states, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The Founding Fathers themselves laid the groundwork of this country to ensure that America will not be taken advantage of by other powers.
Yet today, it is not foreign sovereign entities that pose a threat to our democracy, but our own government that uses force to silence our elected representatives.
If we allow this behavior to continue unchecked, we risk being the very system our founders fought to escape.
Rithika Saravanan is a Junior Reporter with Youth Journalism International.
