A day after federal agents forcibly restrained and handcuffed U.S. Sen Alex Padilla at a Los Angeles news conference, leaders of the country’s two political parties responded in what has become a predictable fashion — with diametrically opposed takes on the incident.

Alex Padilla is the first Latino to represent California in the U.S. Senate. FBI agents handcuffed him after he interrupted a press conference on immigration enforcement in LA.

Longtime Republican strategist Sarah Longwell urged sitting senators in her party to defend Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who was handcuffed and forcibly removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Now the senior U.S. senator from California, Alex Padilla’s career in public service started amid intense fervor over immigration in the early 1990s. Now, it comes full circle.

The incident occurred amid heightened political tensions nationwide, including protests against federal immigration authorities over aggressive sweeps of migrants and immigrants, and deportations.

The senator is known on Capitol Hill for being kind and nerdy. His forcible removal from a news conference resonated as a call to action among Democrats.

Senate Democrats were shaken to the core after seeing videos of officers aggressively pushing California Sen. Alex Padilla out of a news conference with the Homeland Security secretary and eventually