On Monday, Selena Gomez posted and deleted a tearful Instagram video that showed her crying over the deportation of undocumented immigrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents under U.S. President Donald Trump’s new executive orders on immigration.
During his first week in office, Trump signed 10 executive orders on immigration and issued a slew of edicts to carry out promises of mass deportations and tighten border security.
“I just wanted to say that I’m so sorry,” Gomez, 32, said in the now-deleted video. “All my people are getting attacked, the children. I don’t understand. I’m so sorry. I wish I could do something but I can’t.”
“I don’t know what to do. I’ll try everything, I promise,” she added, as she wiped away tears. In text over the video, she wrote, “I’m sorry” and added the Mexican flag emoji.
Gomez faced backlash after sharing the video with her 422 million Instagram followers. Many people, including conservative commentators, criticized Gomez for posting a video of herself crying over the mass deportations.
“Apparently it’s not ok to show empathy for people,” Gomez wrote on her Instagram story after deleting the crying video.
Shortly afterwards, Sam Parker, a 2018 Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Utah, posted, “Deport Selena Gomez” on X and pinned it to his profile.
Sam Parker, U.S. Senate candidate.
Sam Parker for US Senate-Utah / Facebook
In response to Parker, Gomez posted on her Instagram stories and wrote, “Oh Mr. Parker, Mr. Parker. Thanks for the laugh and the threat.”
Selena Gomez responds to Sam Parker’s “Deport Selena Gomez” post.
@SelenaGomez/Instagram
Parker seemed proud to have received a response from the singer and pinned a new post to his profile. “Selena Gomez has responded to me,” he wrote, adding a crying laughing emoji.
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Parker wasn’t the only person who criticized Gomez after she shared her now-deleted video on Instagram. Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan told Fox News on Monday that he has “no apologies.”
“I don’t think we’ve arrested any families. We’ve arrested public safety threats and national security threats, bottom line,” Homan said. “It is all for the good of this nation, and we’re gonna keep going.”
“We got a half a million children who were sex trafficked into this country, separated from their families, put in the hands of criminal cartels to be smuggled into the country. This administration can’t find over 300,000. Where’s the tears for them?” Homan added in response to Gomez’s tearful video.
Political host Tomi Lahren posted a video on X, calling Gomez “stupid and ill-informed,” adding, “This is why we don’t take our political advice from Disney child stars.”
Megyn Kelly also criticized Gomez during her podcast, The Megyn Kelly Show, calling the Emilia Pérez actor “unwell” for posting the video.
“She’s unwell. Obviously, this is an unwell person,” Kelly said on Monday. “Anybody who takes their phone, works up in tears, and posts a video of themselves crying into their phone is sick. That’s a sick person.”
“Tears happen. They tend to happen privately,” she added. “If they happen publicly, I think you should quickly move on and recover. I don’t understand the person who works it and tries to squeeze out more tears to make themselves look extra sad.”
Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt took to X on Friday to announce that “deportation flights have begun,” attaching photos of handcuffed migrants heading to a military aircraft.
“President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the entire world: if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face severe consequences,” Leavitt added.
Gomez has previously shared her thoughts on Trump’s campaign. In October, at the Los Angeles premiere of Emilia Pérez, Gomez told Variety that she “definitely wants to stand by my people.”
She was reacting to race-related remarks made by Tony Hinchcliffe about Puerto Rico and Latinos during a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in October.
Gomez has also spoken out on the issue of immigration a number of times. She produced a docuseries on the lives of undocumented immigrants, titled Living Undocumented. The series, which was released in 2019, followed eight undocumented immigrant families who volunteered to share their stores as they faced potential deportation.
Gomez also wrote an op-ed for Time magazine in 2019, titled “I Feel Afraid for My Country.” “I’m concerned about the way people are being treated in my country,” she wrote. “As a Mexican-American woman I feel a responsibility to use my platform to be a voice for people who are too afraid to speak.”
“Undocumented immigration is an issue I think about every day, and I never forget how blessed I am to have been born in this country thanks to my family and the grace of circumstance,” she continued. “But when I read the news headlines or see debates about immigration rage on social media, I feel afraid for those in similar situations. I feel afraid for my country.”
Gomez said that she doesn’t claim to be “an expert,” “a politician,” “a doctor,” and she doesn’t “work in the system at all.”
“I understand it’s flawed and that we need rules and regulations, but we also have to remember that our country was formed by people who came here from other countries,” Gomez added. “It’s time to listen to the people whose lives are being directly affected by immigration policies. It’s time to get to know the individuals whose complex stories have been reduced to basic headlines.”
— With files from The Associated Press
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