President Donald Trump’s administration published a response to Selena Gomez’s recent Instagram video, in which she cried over the crackdown on deportations of undocumented immigrants, on Friday, Jan. 31.
In the video, which was published on the official White House Instagram and X accounts, three women whose children were allegedly killed by undocumented people are critical of Gomez, 32. The video is titled “Moms of Victims of Illegal Aliens SLAM Selena Gomez: You Didn’t Cry for Our Daughters,” with the women’s comments interspersed with clips of Gomez crying.
The caption for the video referred to the women as “courageous mothers.”
“Seeing that video, it’s hard to believe that it’s actually genuine and real because she’s an actress,” Alexis Nungaray says in the White House’s video.
“I am so happy that Trump won. I’m so glad that this is one of the first bills to help with immigration,” Tammy Nobles later says, although the video does not specify a bill. “I just feel like it’s a ruse to deceive people and to garner sympathy for lawlessness,” Patty Morin adds.
Nungaray’s 12-year-old daughter Jocelyn was killed in Houston in June 2024. Nobles’ daughter Kayla Hamilton, 20, was killed in Maryland in 2022 and Morin’s daughter Rachel, 37, was killed in 2023.
Since Trump took office on Jan. 20, he has targeted undocumented immigrants with mass deportations. He signed the Laken Riley Act, a law that aims to give undocumented immigrants stricter penalties for committing crimes, on Tuesday, Jan. 28. He also signed a presidential memorandum ordering the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to prepare a detention facility in Guantanamo Bay to house up to 30,000 migrants.
In September 2024, a National Institute of Justice-funded study of data from the Texas Department of Public Safety found that “undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.”
On Jan. 27, Gomez, a Texas-born Mexican-American, published an Instagram Stories video of herself in tears with the text “I’m sorry” and a Mexican flag emoji. The video was deleted quickly but circulated on social media.
“All my people are getting attacked, the children,” she could be heard saying through tears. “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.”
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Republican politicians have already criticized Gomez for the video. Sam Parker, a 2018 Republican Senate candidate from Utah, wrote “Deport Selena Gomez” on X after the video was published.
“Oh, Mr. Parker, Mr. Parker. Thanks for the laugh and the threat,” Gomez wrote in response.
Tom Homan, the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement who Trump picked to serve as the “border czar,” told Fox News the deportations will continue “without apology” when asked to respond to Gomez’s video.
A representative for Gomez did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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