Alex Padilla's crime? Being Mexican in MAGA America

When US Senator Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, it was almost as if President Donald Trump's most well-worn talking point came to life: A bad hombre tried to go after a white American.

- Gustavo Arellano, Tribune News Service

All Padilla did was identify himself and try to question Noem about the immigration raids across Southern California that have led to protests and terror.

Instead, federal agents pushed the senator into a hallway, forced him to the ground and handcuffed him before he was released. He and Noem talked privately afterward, yet she claimed to reporters that Padilla “lunged)” at her despite them being far apart and video showing no evidence to back up her laughable assertion. (The claim was in keeping with Noem’s pronouncements this week. On Tuesday, she accused Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum of encouraging violent protests in L.A. when the president actually called for calm.)

The manhandling of Padilla on Thursday and his subsequent depiction by conservatives as a modern-day Pancho Villa isn't surprising one bit. Trashing people of Mexican heritage has been one of Trump's most successful electoral planks—don't forget that he kicked off his 2016 presidential campaigns by proclaiming Mexican immigrants to be “bad” and smugglers - because he knows it works. You could be a newcomer from Jalisco, you could be someone whose ancestors put down roots before the Mayflower, it doesn't matter: For centuries, the default stance in this country is to look at anyone with family ties to our neighbor to the south with skepticism, if not outright hate.