The population of the United States includes an estimated 65.2 million Latinosnearly a quarter of which Call California's home. For For more than a centuryThe Latinos were absent from the two seats of the United States Senate. In 2022, Senator Alex Padilla revoked the deliberate negligence of Latin senatorial candidates by the main political parties, winning 61.1% of the votes, more than any other state candidateincluding Governor Gavin Newsom.
On Thursday, in the midst of the largest immigration raids of the Trump administration to date, Padilla was eliminated by force At a press conference from the National Security Department in his hometown, Los Angeles. Manodrado, for daring to exercise his responsibilities of Congress. Expelled from a meeting related to work for asking a question. For many Latinos, Padilla's abhorrent treatment by the Trump administration is emblematic of a shared complaint: to be expelled from the conversations about our lives, our families and our future.
Trump administration immigration raids are directly a Latin problem. Not because immigration is a Latin problem, all problems are Latin problems, but because Trump's immigration application is and has always been racially motivated. From the announcement of the Trump campaign in 2015, calling Mexican rapists and criminals, until their fixation with the construction of a wall through our southern border and that Mexico pays for it, to its 2024 campaign focused on falsehoods on immigrants and criminality, central narration has been “we” versus “them.”
Immigration is a concern in all cities and states, however, Trump's immigration application seems to be focused exclusively on Latin communities. In Los Angeles, Trump's raids explicitly add nearby schoolsattending to errands how to obtain a washing or sitting in a Church parking.
During the last week, Los Angeles has been the zero zone for Trump's federal overreach. The silencing and elimination of Padilla follow the negatives to admit Four representatives of the United States House at the Federal Detention Center of Los Angeles on Saturday and three representatives of the Customs Immigration and Control Processing Center Sunday.
While immigration rates pose serious policies and human rights concerns, the unequal treatment of Latin Congress leaders by the Trump administration represents a different type of danger: a test for the control of our democratic republic.
América has three co-admiral branches: legislative, executive, judicial. This system for separation of powers and controls and balances is designed to prevent tyranny and guarantee a balanced government. During the last five months, the Trump administration has altered our government system.
The Trump administration avoided the budget actions of the congress by eliminating foreign aid. Trump officials deliberately ignored judicial orders. They have blocked the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate to enter federal buildings, they were obstructed to carry out supervision and undermine their consultations.
Like Trump's immigration application actions, administration overreach is racially motivated. Latinos have expressed for a long time that no one is listening to their needs, that they are out of the conversation and never at the table where decisions are made. Research has made it clear that Latinos have the worst part of the surrender in important social institutions such as academia, private companies, philanthropy and the media. The list continues.
Unfortunately, when Latinos achieve positions that should exercise power, such as Padilla's rise to the Senate, positions themselves tend to be diminished, so that, again, as a paddle being silenced in a press conference, Latinos who gain prominence are denied the power that non -Latin enjoy in the parallel positions. This week's events provide a new chapter on the decrease in Latin agency and dignity; Congress members were denied entry to do their job, and in the case of Padilla, eliminated and detained by force.
One thing is consistent: repeated dehumanization of Latinos and their needs. Latinos are not a monolith, but the Trump administration is surely treating us as such. His administration has implemented a white letter attack against Latinos. From members of the Latin community who are harassed and arrested in the parking lots of Home Depot, in places of worship or school graduations of their children, to specific attacks on the sustainability and operations of non -profit organizations led by Latinos, to the physical assault of an American senator. The subjugation of Latinos is currently exhibited in Los Angeles, a region that feeds the fourth largest economy in the world (California) and is the global epicenter of media and entertainment. The absence of significant Latin participation in the configuration of narratives, trends and public imagination is a matter of concern.
Any conversation about the fragility of American democracy, the resurgence of fascism and authoritarianism and the future of the Constitution is, inherently, a discourse over Latinos and above all Americans. While Latinos remain silenced, ostracted and relegated to the periphery in conversations about the future of this nation, that future is still gloomy. The proof of how the United States responds in real time to wholesale attack in its second largest demographic group is now a shared task. And the group leader is Padilla.
Sonja Díaz is a civil rights lawyer and co -founder of the Latin Laboratory Futures 2050 and INSTITUTE OF POLICY AND POLICY OF UCLA LATIN.
