WATCH: Padilla: “A nation of laws includes being a nation of due process, of accountability, and above all, human dignity”
August 6, 2026 - WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, called out the Trump Administration’s continued abuses of power through the carrying out of their violent mass deportation agenda and inhumane treatment of detained immigrants. Padilla highlighted how U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike are being shot and killed by federal immigration enforcement officers and demanded accountability from the Trump Administration.
In his remarks, Padilla raised concerns over those who have been terrorized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, including those who have died during violent encounters with federal agents. He detailed the story of Joan Sebastián Guerrero, an immigrant from Columbia who had been authorized to work in the United States, who was tragically killed by an ICE officer last month. Padilla criticized the Trump Administration’s refusal to take accountability and pushed for stronger oversight of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as they increase efforts to quickly deploy 12,000 new ICE officers across communities without proper vetting.
“First of all, Joan Sebastián Guerrero’s daughter should still have her father. Second, and this is publicly reported, the man who took his life should never have been given a badge and a gun,” said Senator Padilla. “It’s emblematic of a much larger failure within the Department of Homeland Security, as ICE has rushed this last year, to put as many officers as they could into communities as quickly as possible. Something pretty hypocritical, by the way, from an Administration calling for the re-vetting of previously vetted refugees and other immigrants.”
Padilla also highlighted the unacceptable conditions in immigration detention centers, including lack of access to basic needs such as clean water, food, and medical care. Despite court orders to improve these facilities and a record number of deaths in ICE custody, Padilla emphasized how the Administration has doubled down on their anti-immigrant agenda by increasing detention facilities across the country and intensifying their detention and deportation efforts.
“ICE arrested 51,000 people in the month of July, the largest in a single month in DHS history. And again, the vast majority are not dangerous, violent criminals. And this Administration has the audacity to ignore court orders to provide basic care and dignity to the people that it’s cramming into these detention facilities,” said Senator Padilla. “ICE is now expanding detention facilities while continuing to carry out these mass enforcement operations across the country. They’re failing the humanity test. They’re being ordered by federal courts to do the job right. They’re doubling down and growing their operation.”
Padilla renewed his calls for stronger oversight of federal immigration enforcement agents, accountability for the killings and deaths resulting from the Trump Administration’s out of control agenda, and safeguards over immigrant communities across the country. Padilla underscored the importance of obtaining justice for those killed because of the Administration’s anti-immigrant agenda, including Alex Pretti, Renee Nicole Good, Ruben Ray Martinez, Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, and Joan Sebastian Guerrero. He reaffirmed his commitment to fighting for immigrant communities facing family separation, detention abuses, and threats to due process and human dignity.
“Joan Sebastian Guerrero was one of those people, as there are thousands of others living in fear today. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters. They’re our friends, they’re our co-workers and neighbors, all human beings deserving of basic dignity and humanity,” concluded Senator Padilla. “We should never accept an America where federal agents hide their faces, abuse their authority, or take life without oversight and accountability. It’s a choice, folks, that we’re making. What kind of a country are we working towards? It’s a choice that this Administration and congressional Republicans have made of what we’re seeing on the streets. America deserves better.”
Padilla has been an outspoken leader against the harsh and cruel operations of ICE and CBP under the second Trump Administration. In June, Padilla and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) sounded the alarm over the significant increase in deaths among detainees in ICE custody since January 2025, expressing concern over the announcement of the 50th reported death in ICE custody under the Trump Administration. Padilla also condemned Republicans’ partisan bill to provide ICE and CBP with an extra $70 billion without necessary reforms. Padilla also forced a vote on his amendment to the budget reconciliation bill that would require ICE agents to wear body cameras while on duty. Earlier this year, Padilla demanded answers from the Trump Administration on their decision to pull thousands of federal law enforcement agents away from their work protecting communities from dangerous criminals and reassign them to arrest, detain, and indiscriminately deport noncitizens without criminal records.
Video of Padilla’s remarks is available here.
Transcript of Padilla’s remarks is available below:
Mr. President, colleagues, there’s a lot going on in the country right now. Actually, a lot going on around the world. And I rise today not to address specifically the cost-of-living challenges that so many working families are struggling with. That’s certainly a topic of news these days, rightfully so. Not here to focus on what families of deployed service members must be feeling right now. Although that is certainly worthy of our thoughts and consideration and empathy, particularly the family members and the loved ones of the 18 service members that have lost their lives in this unauthorized war with Iran that the President has brought us into. I want to focus on something that about a year ago was really dominating the evening news and a lot of our social media feeds: immigration. And specifically, this Administration’s cruel, often violent tactics, as part of their mass deportation and, deportation agenda. Families are still being torn apart. Tens of thousands of immigrants currently being detained in detention centers around the country.
Loved ones of those killed by federal agents in broad daylight are also still hurting, including the family of Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 25-year-old father, an immigrant from Colombia, who had work authorization. He was driving in his car last month when a federal agent opened fire, shooting him in the head, and killing him. I hope you remember the story. It wasn’t that long ago. If you followed the story, you’ll know that his partner and his three-year-old daughter, still dressed in her Bluey pajamas that morning, were there at the scene because it was so close to their home. And according to witnesses, Joan’s last words were, “I tried to stop.” I raise this because, whenever there’s a tragedy like this that happens under this Administration, we quickly hear from department officials, from the White House, and MAGA supporters that all these victims had to do were follow instructions as if it was their fault that they’re being shot and, in some instances, killed. Well, that’s exactly what Joan was attempting to do. Yet he was killed anyway. Now I know we don’t have all the details of exactly how this tragedy unfolded. In large part, we don’t have all the details because some people say, “Well, just let’s go to the video. Let’s go to the body cam footage and see exactly what happened.” Despite receiving billions and billions of taxpayer dollars, which included funding for body cameras, these officers weren’t wearing any, but there are a couple things that we know for certain.
First of all, Joan Sebastian Guerrero’s daughter should still have her father. Second, and this is publicly reported, the man who took his life should never have been given a badge and a gun, and that’s not just coming from me. That’s coming from Tom Homan. That’s right, President Trump’s quote border czar, who recently said in a TV interview that I don’t think he should have ever cleared vetting. From what we’ve learned, this is a man who verbally, emotionally, and physically abused not just one, but two ex-wives. And once threw his 13-year-old daughter through a glass coffee table. So, Mr. Homan’s absolutely right when he says that this man’s hiring was a failure of the agency’s vetting process. But it’s emblematic of a much larger failure within the Department of Homeland Security, as ICE has rushed this last year, to put as many officers as they could into communities as quickly as possible. Something pretty hypocritical, by the way, from an Administration calling for the re-vetting of previously vetted refugees and other immigrants.
But I digress. In less than a year, ICE has hired more than 12,000 officers. A 120% increase in staffing. Huge increase in a small amount of time. In part, they were so eager to hire up that they were offering $50,000 bonuses for people who signed on to the agency. Along the way, they also lowered recruitment standards to try to hire as many people as possible, and they shortened training. Shortened training for law enforcement officers before deploying them into the streets. Anybody with history and experience with state and local law enforcement knows what happens when you do this. It’s it’s it’s a bad combination, a recipe for disaster when you hire too quickly, shorten training, and lower recruitment standards. And now the federal government is seeing the consequences of those bad decisions.
How many more unqualified individuals, who have not been sufficiently vetted or trained, are now in our communities? Not just armed, but armed and dressed as if they’re going to war? That’s not the job they’re doing. Along the way, violating constitutional rights, using excessive force, risking innocent lives, and worst of all, facing no accountability. Colleagues, accountability isn’t an inconvenience for law enforcement. It’s imperative in a society where we entrust law enforcement officers with the power to take lives, our liberty, or our property – when warranted.
Accountability is what gives law enforcement the legitimacy in a democracy. But that’s not what’s going on today. Just a couple weeks ago, it was reported that the FBI will no longer investigate confrontations with immigration enforcement agencies. Instead, Homeland Security will do the investigating to determine whether officers or agents have broken the law. If true, how’s that supposed to inspire confidence or legitimacy? After all, it’s been six months since the killing of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good. And still nobody’s been held accountable for those deaths. Let me repeat their names: Alex Pretti, Renee Nicole Good, Ruben Ray Martinez, Silverio Villegas González, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Joan Sebastian Guerrero. God, I pray there’s not more to come. How many more need to die before this Administration recognizes, acknowledges, and admits that something is deeply wrong?
Another important point I want to make today is that these failures don’t end on the streets in our communities. They’re also happening inside the walls of detention facilities, where, as of yesterday, at least 54 people have died since the beginning of this Administration. The year 2025 was a record year – not a good record – the most deaths in ICE custody in the calendar year, and we’re on track to exceed that in 2026. At this moment, more than 67,000 people are being held in overcrowded and understaffed facilities. Where many are denied access to healthy food, clean water, even basic medical care. Forget about life-saving care for people with extreme conditions. Folks that I’ve seen and talked to personally suffering from injuries they sustained when being taken into custody because of the cruelty and the violence of how it’s being done. And reporting just this morning from the Associated Press shows us that more than 50 parents and spouses of active duty service members have been detained since the beginning of the second Trump Administration, and at least six have been deported. Think about that. Their sons and daughters, husbands and wives are willing to put their lives on the line for this country during wartime, no less. And the Trump Administration is rewarding their service by detaining and deporting their family members.
Yet, despite all this, Donald Trump and those around him keep repeating the lie that they’re only going after the worst of the worst. It’s not true. Even federal courts have found that the conditions in these detention facilities, by the way, are unacceptable. A federal district court judge in California just ordered improvements to basic needs like access to clean water, nutritious food, and medical and disability care in the Adelanto ICE processing center. Basic standards for humanity that are both federal law and international law. In February, a similar order to provide access to medical care was issued regarding the largest detention center in California, the one located in California City. But just last week, we learned from a neutral court-appointed monitor that ICE is failing to comply with that order. This Administration just doesn’t care. Despite these deaths, despite these conditions, and despite the enormous human toll, the Administration is actually doubling down.
ICE arrested 51,000 people in the month of July, the largest in a single month in DHS history. And again, the vast majority are not dangerous, violent criminals. So we have a historic number of arrests, coupled with a historic number of deaths in ICE custody. And this Administration has the audacity to ignore court orders to provide basic care and dignity to the people that it’s cramming into these detention facilities. And on top of all that, the Republican majority in this Congress has given ICE and Border Patrol more than $150 billion, with no accountability, no safeguards required. So they don’t even have to come back to Congress to justify their funding requests and answer questions for the next three years. ICE is now expanding detention facilities while continuing to carry out these mass enforcement operations across the country. They’re failing. They’re failing the humanity test. They’re being ordered by federal courts to do the job right. They’re doubling down and growing their operation.
And we now know that over 300,000 Haitian immigrants are now facing arrest and deportation after the Trump Administration has ripped away their temporary protected status. Colleagues, how many people need to die at the hands of ill-trained, unqualified, and unaccountable federal agents and inside inhumane detention centers before we, as the Congress, at least the Senate, say enough? Before we call for accountability and demand common sense reforms. What’s it going to take? Because our proposals are out there, like my VISIBLE Act, which says immigration enforcement officials have to have very clear, very visible identification. Something that’s standard for law enforcement agencies nationwide. If a group of masked individuals in unmarked cars runs you off the road, jumps out of their cars with guns drawn, and starts screaming in your face without any way to easily and quickly know that they’re federal agents, of course somebody’s going to panic.
We just saw that exact scenario play out in Houston a few weeks ago. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was driving in his van on his way to work when two unmarked cars, without sirens or lights, began chasing him. Eventually, blocking his car on a small side street. As he was trying to turn around, they shot him and killed him. Without any clear identification, how could Lorenzo know that these cars chasing him belonged to law enforcement? As one expert reviewing the footage of this chase from public cameras said, “It looks more like a carjacking attempt than it is a police stop.” And we wonder why some people panic. That’s exactly why we need the basic standards for federal law enforcement, like those called for in Senator Booker’s Federal Law Enforcement Standards and Accountability Act, and for the protection of agents and civilians alike, law enforcement needs to have the body cameras, and to have them turned on, which the FOCUS Act would require.
These are the kinds of basic safeguards that Democrats have been proposing over and over again, but the Administration and the Republican majority doesn’t want to act on it. Now we have a lot of policy debates here in Congress, but too often we lose sight of the people behind the headlines and the people behind the statistics that are impacted by these policies. Joan Sebastian Guerrero was one of those people, as there are thousands of others living in fear today. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters. They’re our friends, there are our co-workers and neighbors, all human beings deserving of basic dignity and humanity. Last month, Joan Sebastian Guerrero got into his car, expecting just a normal, regular day. And now his daughter will grow up in a world without him in it. And she carries his memory with her for the rest of her life. Not only of him, but how he was taken from her. She’ll remember that forever. And colleagues, I implore that we remember as well, and let’s learn from it and do everything possible to keep it from happening again. Because we are a nation of laws that need to be enforced, but a nation of laws includes being a nation of due process, of accountability, and above all, human dignity. And we should never accept an America where federal agents hide their faces, abuse their authority, or take life without oversight and accountability. It’s a choice, folks, that we’re making. What kind of a country are we working towards? It’s a choice that this Administration and congressional Republicans have made of what we’re seeing on the streets. America deserves better. America deserves better. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
Source: Senator Alex Padilla
