With video, White House calls out Selena Gomez for crying over immigration raids

The White House has slammed Hollywood actor-singer Selena Gomez over a now-deleted Instagram video in which she was seen crying over the mass deportations that have taken place in the US as part of President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration.

The Trump administration has posted a video on social media, featuring three women whose children were killed by undocumented immigrants.

"You don't know who you're crying for. What about our children who were brutally murdered, and raped and beaten to death and left on the floor by these illegal immigrants?" said Tammy Nobles, mother of Kayla Hamilton, who was killed by an El Salvadoran national in 2021.

"They didn't cry for our daughters," she added.

Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old daughter Jocelyn was killed last year, questioned whether Gomez was being genuine in the video since "she's an actress".

"Seeing that video, it's hard to believe that it’s actually genuine and real because she’s an actress. My daughter was a child. There's many other children whose lives were taken due to people who cross here illegally," she said.

Without mincing words, Patty Morin, whose daughter Rachel was killed in 2023, said the actor-singer's video was "just a ruse to deceive people and to garner sympathy for lawlessness".

"No one has stood up except for us mothers to cry out about our children."

The three women also thanked President Trump for launching the crackdown on illegal immigration within hours of taking office on January 20, saying that they stood by him to "make America safer again".

Selena Gomez was widely criticised for the video posted on January 27, which she had captioned it as “I’m sorry,” along with a Mexican flag emoji.

"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 said while visibly sobbing.

Trump's border czar, Tom Homan asserted that law enforcement authorities were addressing national security threats and not arresting ordinary families. He affirmed that there would be "no apologies" for the deportations.

"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?"

Texas Republican Monica De La Cruz said Gomez's “crocodile tears aren’t for deportations — it’s a PR stunt to distract @TheAcademy from Hispanics HATING her movie”, in reference to the Oscar-nominated film “Emilia Perez”.

Since Trump returned to the White House on January 20, there have been raids in cities including Chicago, New York, Denver and Los Angeles.

More than 3,500 undocumented migrants have been arrested since January 20, including just over 3,145 in the past one week, according to daily statistics published by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

By comparison, an average of 310 were made during the 2024 fiscal year, when former President Joe Biden was in office, according to the agency.