Trump, meanwhile, signalled a partial backdown on the raids being conducted across the country, acknowledging farmers and hotels were losing valuable workers as a result of his “very aggressive” approach.
Earlier in Los Angeles, a US senator was dragged out of a room and briefly handcuffed after interrupting a news conference on the Trump administration’s immigration raids, in a dramatic encounter some Democrats have called anti-democratic and outrageous.
US Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat, was forcibly removed from the news conference being held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and briefly detained by Secret Service agents he interrupted, saying he had “questions for the secretary”.
Newsom, posted footage of the incident on social media. “This is outrageous, dictatorial, and shameful. Trump and his shock troops are out of control,” he said.
“If they can handcuff a US senator for asking a question, imagine what they will do to you.”
Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, said the Padilla video “sickened my stomach” and that it “reeks of totalitarianism”.
“It’s disgusting … this is not what democracies do,” he said.
Republicans, however, portrayed the incident as a publicity stunt by Padilla. Noem said his conduct was inappropriate and unbecoming of a senator. She told Fox News he burst into the room, lunged towards the podium without identifying himself and began to interrupt.
“Perhaps he wanted the scene,” she said. She also met with the senator for 10 to 15 minutes after the news conference concluded.
US Senator Alex Padilla, from California, is pushed out of the room as the Homeland Security secretary holds a news conference in Los Angeles.Credit: AP
At his own news conference, Padilla said he attended the event peacefully and to obtain answers to questions about the raids that authorities had failed to provide to his office. He said he was handcuffed but not arrested or detained.
“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question … you can only imagine what they’re doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day labourers out in the Los Angeles community,” Padilla said.
Noem told reporters that immigration authorities had tens of thousands of people on their list of targets, and that millions of people were in Los Angeles illegally.
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She said criminals were the primary target but others may be caught up in the raids as “collateral” if they were associates of the targets.
“We’re going to stay here and build our operations until we make sure that we liberate the city of Los Angeles,” Noem said, before the judge’s ruling.
But at the same time, Trump indicated he was preparing to make compromises on his tough approach after complaints from industry and farmers that they were losing important and irreplaceable labour because of the raids.
California in particular is reliant on migrant, often undocumented, workers, for its hospitality industry, shops and car washes, and agricultural basin.
“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
“In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”
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Later, at a White House event, Trump said farmers were being “hurt badly” as they had loyal, long-standing workers who might not be in the country legally but could be replaced by criminals if they were deported.
“We’re going to have to do something about that,” he said. “We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have, maybe, what they’re supposed to have.
“We can’t do that to our farmers. And leisure too. Hotels. We’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”
Trump critics immediately said it was another example of “TACO” – or Trump Always Chickens Out – an acronym that initially circulated among Wall Street traders to describe the president’s oscillation on tariffs, but has now become a popular descriptor for his policy backflips or compromises.
“Turns out, chasing hard-working people through ranches and farms and snatching women and children off the streets is not good policy,” Newsom said on X.
After a quieter day of demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles – the second night of a curfew – police said they made 81 arrests overnight, mostly for failing to disperse.
With AP
