Selena Gomez Reacts to Trump Deportations in Tearful Video

Selena Gomez got candid about her feelings around President Donald Trump‘s immediate attack on immigrants after taking office. On Monday, the Emilia Pérez actress posted a tearful video on her Instagram Story addressing the administration’s actions.

“All my people are getting attacked, the children. I don’t understand,” Gomez says in a since-deleted video that saw her wipe away tears and hold back sobs. “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.”

Gomez deleted the video almost immediately after receiving negative comments from those watching: “Apparently it’s not ok to show empathy for people,” she said in a new slide.

Since taking office last week, Trump has stayed true to his promise to target undocumented Americans, touting the number of people ICE has rounded up thus far on social media. It’s a promise he made while campaigning for president, claiming he’d cause mass deportations as soon as he took the oath of office.

“Deportation flights have begun,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted Thursday on X, cheering the move. “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.”

The Trump administration has been working on an asylum agreement with El Salvador that would allow the U.S. to deport migrants who aren’t from the Central American country there, per CBS News. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance exaggerated the threat posed by immigrants throughout the 2024 campaign, including making unsubstantiated claims that gangs were “taking over cities,” to argue for stricter immigration policies.

For her part, Gomez has long supported immigrant rights. In 2019, she hosted a show called Living Undocumented, which highlighted the experiences of several immigrant families fearing ICE deportations. That year, she also wrote an op-ed for Time that discussed her aunt’s own journey crossing the U.S-Mexico order “hidden in the back of the truck” in the early Nineties.

“I’m concerned about the way people are being treated in my country. 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,” she wrote at the time. “Fear shouldn’t stop us from getting involved and educating ourselves on an issue that affects millions of people in our country. Fear didn’t stop my aunt from getting into the back of that truck. And for that, I will always be grateful.”