AILSA CHANG, HOST:
At this moment, Southern California here is at the center of the national immigration debate. In Los Angeles, protests continue during an increase in federal immigration enforcement. Immigration raids around here have recently targeted a clothing factory, a Home Depot, several car washes and farms in surrounding counties. President Trump has deployed thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of U.S. Marines to LA, over the objections of the city's mayor and the state's governor. And this afternoon. California Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat, was thrown to the ground, handcuffed and forcibly removed from a press conference for the secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. For more on all of this, we're joined now by Assistant Secretary for Border and Immigration Policy Tony Pham. Welcome.
TONY PHAM: Miss Chang, thank you so much for having me today.
CHANG: Thank you for being with us. So I want to ask you a little bit more about that incident at the press conference for your department's secretary. I understand that Noem and Padilla did briefly meet afterwards. Do you know what they talked about?
PHAM: I don't have any visibility on any conversation that happened subsequent to the incident between them.
CHANG: OK. Well, why do you think federal law enforcement officers felt that they had to physically subdue and handcuff the senator?
PHAM: Well, I suspect in their training, when they see or sense that there may be a disruption or a threat to the secretary, they have to engage the individual. So without truly having any visibility on what Mr. Padilla did during that period of time, I can only rely on the fact that these individuals act and react to the situation that is actually placed before them.
CHANG: OK. Well, we do have visibility on the video, and Senator Padilla is heard identifying himself as Senator Alex Padilla. But let me go on to ask you - Padilla told reporters...
PHAM: Well, Miss Chang, if I may...
CHANG: Yes.
PHAM: Yes, I can respect the fact that he holds the position of senator, but I will always say this - senators can engage in conduct that could present a threat as well, right? Just because you hold a particular title, you're not held to any lower of a standard of behavior. So I will just say that, as you mentioned that he has (ph) a senator, and he identified him as a senator. But the question still becomes, what was his conduct that was perceived by the individual law enforcement officers to take their actions?
CHANG: Well, Padilla explained his conduct. He told reporters that he came to that press conference to get more information because he had been unable to get a meeting with DHS officials. When is the last time that you briefed Senator Padilla and other Democratic lawmakers about your actions?
PHAM: In particular, as the former assistant secretary at Homeland Security, I have not.
CHANG: OK. Do you know when DHS officials in general have last briefed Democratic lawmakers about these enforcement actions?
PHAM: Yeah, not when they last had brief - I do understand the process is they will get requests to be able to present before certain committees and certain members and staffers, and then they typically, at DHS, accommodate those requests.
CHANG: All right, let's talk about the protests here in Los Angeles. Local law enforcement has been saying for days now that they do not need the National Guard or the U.S. Marines. What specific functions do you believe these federal troops have provided that local law enforcement has not been providing?
PHAM: Well, I think when we draw on our past experience of what we witnessed, and at times what we personally endured and watched in the past, in 2020 - in the summer of 2020, when cities such as Portland, Seattle, Chicago began to burn because of poor decision-making from leadership in those cities, I think the function and the response by the administration to send in federal law enforcement officers, to include the National Guard is absolutely 100% appropriate to help send a aggressive and forcible response to the individual law-abiding citizens and the business owners in LA that are suffering now because of the rioting.
CHANG: Let's ground this in some evidence. Over the last two nights, there have been 274 arrests for failure to disperse, an additional 24 arrests for curfew violations. We're not talking about a picture of overwhelming violence here. Does it seem like the LAPD has things under control at the moment?
PHAM: Well, I would think that they can provide some solace that they have federal support, and that's what led to their ability to maintain order, and that they have the resources from the federal government to be able to, you know, impose those curfews, impose the law.
CHANG: You think the federal troops are solely responsible for the order that we see today in Los Angeles?
PHAM: No, that's not what I said. I think in a partnership model, which should have occurred at the very beginning, Miss Chang - I think in that partnership model it's perfectly OK to accept and acknowledge that having a federal and National Guard presence in the city to help guard property for the federal purposes, or the federal property, frees up, you know, a certain number of individuals, so that way they can focus on imposing the curfews.
So this isn't just a - I would never take a position in the context of law enforcement and public safety that this - that one - you know, one particular department should be solely responsible for everything. This is a partnership, and quite frankly, given some of the rhetoric that comes from the governor out there and the Mayor Bass, and even the - I'm sorry, the chief prosecutor and the chief of police at the initial phase of when things began to percolate, demonizing ICE officers, demonizing ICE in general, I think it was - I think it's OK to simply say in partnership, you know, because the federal authorities are out there and military presence is out there, they were able to push forward and maintain and reinstitute order.
CHANG: But tell me, for those Americans out there watching all of this right now who are feeling scared about the idea of the U.S. military potentially suppressing their right to free speech, what would you like to say to those Americans?
PHAM: I would like for them to understand that had we received, as Americans, forthright decision-making from liberal governors and liberal mayors who need to support their law enforcement - if they had made critical decisions at the very beginning to deploy their local law enforcement at the very beginning, then this issue could have very well potentially been avoided. But we have seen how those poor decision-making processes and matrices played out years ago. And so the reaction is a preventative one, and I think it worked out.
CHANG: Do you foresee military troops being deployed to other cities where immigration raids or other immigration enforcement actions will take place?
PHAM: I would foresee and anticipate - and I can't speak for the administration, but I would anticipate if the leadership in those localities failed to take necessary positions to deploy their law enforcement officials out there to help maintain order and protect the law-abiding citizens, I would forecast that military presence through National Guard there...
CHANG: All right.
PHAM: ...Would be appropriate.
CHANG: Assistant Secretary for Border and Immigration Policy Tony Pham, thank you very much.
PHAM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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