Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) — who has garnered a reputation for making dramatic public spectacles over the Trump Administration’s immigration agenda — continued with that theme on Wednesday when he stormed out of a Senate hearing.

Padilla, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration, took issue with the hearing’s stated goal of highlighting the massive increase in political violence targeting federal immigration authorities. The hearing listed three witnesses: a local Texas sheriff, the vice president of Chicago Flips Red, a conservative advocacy group, and a journalist from the Washington Examiner.

“Americans have had enough. They’re sick of masked agents disrespecting daycares, schools and churches, disappearing loved ones and intimidating our communities,” Padilla ranted in his opening remarks. “It’s clear to me that this hearing will not be a serious or constructive conversation, and for that reason, I refuse to give oxygen to the fire of disinformation that this hearing was set up to ignite.”

He then slammed his binder down before storming out of the room.

While speaking with reporters after his exit, Padilla argued that the hearing “wasn’t serious” by pointing to the lack of government officials. “If there’s a serious conversation, we’d have government officials participating as witnesses, fielding questions. There’s no representative from the Department of Homeland Security here. There’s no representative of ICE here to engage in meaningful conversation,” Padilla told NOTUS. “And that’s not a coincidence. That’s very, very intentional. They refuse to be productive and constructive.”

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Despite Padilla’s dismissal of the hearings substance, both the federal government and independent researchers have indeed shared a number of troubling stats concerning increased political violence targeting immigration agents.

One study conducted by PBS in conjunction with researchers at the University of Maryland measured a 35 percent increase in extremist attacks targeting federal buildings and immigration enforcement sites since President Donald Trump returned to the White House this past January. A separate study from NPR measured a 25 percent increase in attacks on federal agents, a figure that is likely undercounted due to instances where perpetrators are never caught.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security reported a whopping 8,000 percent increase in death threats targeting federal agents. DHS attributes the surge to social media campaigns, including instances of bounties being placed on agents and organized campaigns to disrupt immigration enforcement operations. And just this week, DHS reported that there have been more than 90 ramming attacks targeting federal immigration officers.

RELATED: DHS Announces Surge In Deportation Operations As ICE Hiring Soars

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