One year ago, I found myself in a hallway on the West Los Angeles Federal Building face down on the floor as federal agents placed handcuffs on my wrists.

How did a United States Senator find himself in that position? By doing something this administration cannot stand: asking questions.

I had gone there to meet with officials overseeing the unprecedented military invasion of Los Angeles about the mission and its questionable justification. While there, I learned that then-Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, was holding a press conference. I asked to attend so I could listen in. But when I heard Secretary Noem claim that military and DHS personnel had been sent to "liberate" Los Angeles from its own elected leaders, I was compelled to speak up. 

I had the audacity to exercise one of my most basic responsibilities as a Senator: conduct oversight and try to ask her a question – and everyone saw what happened next.

That day was never really about me, though.

It was about what was happening in Los Angeles – and would soon happen across the country.

At the time, communities were living in fear as federal agents indiscriminately swept people up in aggressive raids as administration officials used inflammatory rhetoric to justify increasingly extreme actions and threatened to deploy troops into American cities.

I warned then that Los Angeles was not an outlier, but a test case for tactics that would spread nationwide.

Sadly, I was right.

Over the following months, the Trump Administration launched similar operations in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Portland, Minneapolis, and beyond. The cities changed, but the message didn’t: this administration was willing to test the limits of its authority, punish dissent, and use terror as a tool of governance.

It was a frightening moment calling on people to speak out.

And Americans answered that call.

Across the country people organized and protested, with millions taking to the streets two days later for the first “No Kings” rally.

They documented abuses, and demanded accountability, checked on neighbors and showed up at detention facilities, courthouses, and community meetings.

And because they refused to look away, something important happened: public support for Donald Trump’s harsh immigration enforcement policies began to erode. 

Americans witnessed those policies in practice, and many didn’t like what they saw.

The majority of Americans don’t support federal agents violently rounding up citizens and undocumented immigrants alike. They don’t support racial profiling, family separations, or detaining women and children in unsanitary facilities. They don’t support deporting the workforce critical to our housing, childcare, healthcare, and so many more industries, or watching elected officials and citizens alike punished for protesting and speaking out. 

And they were horrified by seeing two United States citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, shot and killed by federal agents in broad daylight – and even more appalled when their own government lie about it.

The administration knows public opinion has turned. But instead of changing policy, they changed tactics.

Many of the most troubling actions that once unfolded on live camera feeds, are now happening more quietly and often behind closed doors.

Immigration courts are scheduling massive "Mega Master" hearings meant to accelerate deportations without due process. Strikingly, even legal immigration pathways are being shut down and policies are making it easier to remove immigrants with lawful status. Dreamers who followed every rule are finding themselves increasingly vulnerable as the government delays DACA renewals to the point that their status expires.

The headlines may have become less frequent. But the human consequences remain just as real – especially for those held inside detention facilities like Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California, Dilley Detention Center in Texas, and Delaney Hall in New Jersey.

Across the country, reports continue to emerge of overcrowding, inadequate medical care, unsafe conditions, prolonged detention, and treatment that falls far short of basic human dignity. The number of detainee deaths in ICE facilities continue to rise with nearly 50 deaths since the beginning of the Trump Administration – 19 of them just this year so far.

The less visibility there is, the easier it becomes for these conditions to persist. Because when oversight disappears, accountability goes with it.

Whether it’s cruelty becoming procedure, fear becoming routine, abuses becoming normalized, or accountability fading once the cameras leave – we cannot accept this as the new normal.

Which is why continuing to speak out remains so critical.

Yet, speaking out alone is not enough.

For decades Congress has failed to meaningfully modernize our immigration system.

That failure has created a vacuum that Republican politicians have exploited to define the immigration debate on their terms, fearmongering instead of policymaking and executive order instead of legislation.

Rather than simply responding to each new outrage or defending against each new attack, Democrats have a responsibility to articulate a better vision – and a better plan – for immigration rooted in both dignity and security.

We can secure our borders in a humane and orderly way while ensuring pathways to seek safety for those who need it. We can modernize our legal immigration system to keep us globally competitive while protecting American workers. We can ensure the law affords due process and keeps families together. We can provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, farmworkers, and other long-term residents.

Even President Reagan believed that if you’ve lived here for years, paid taxes and contributed to your community for years, you deserve a fair shot at the American Dream.

Meanwhile, we cannot ignore the abuses happening right now: the denial of due process, of adequate medical care, basic hygiene, the right to petition for asylum and more.

And when voters give Democrats the opportunity to govern again, we must be prepared not only to wield our power to investigate abuses, but to enact reforms that prevent future administrations from abusing authority.

We need immediate accountability and long-term reform.

One year ago, they knocked me down, but I got back up.

That moment was about what happens when power goes unchecked and people are intimidated into silence.

Democracy depends on regular people refusing to look away once the headlines fade. It depends on citizens continuing to ask questions, to demand accountability, and to continue to speaking out even when it becomes harder to see what is happening behind closed doors.

A year ago, I got back up. And for the sake of our democracy, all of us must keep getting back up too.