Selena Gomez attacked a Republican congressman for saying she should be deported after posting an emotional video reacting to President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown earlier this week.
The 32-year-old Emilia Pérez star responded on Instagram to Sam Parker, a 2018 Republican Senate candidate from Utah, who tweeted “Deport Selena Gomez” on X after criticizing her video on his personal account shortly after it was posted.
In an Instagram Stories post, she wrote over a dark background, “Oh, Mr. Parker, Mr. Parker.” “Thank you for the laugh and the threat.”
In a since-deleted Instagram Stories video, Gomez appears to have offered a few words in response to recent deportations in the United States. She captioned the video with “I’m sorry” and an emoji of the Mexican flag.
“All my people, including children, are being attacked,” she added in the video. “I do not comprehend. I am very sorry; I wish I could do anything, but I can’t. I do not know what to do. I pledge to try anything.
In a subsequent post, she wrote over a black backdrop, “Apparently it’s not okay to show empathy for people.”
The “Calm Down” musician’s post came one day after 956 people were detained in a countrywide immigration raid, the most since Trump took office on January 20, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as reported by the BBC. The outlet recorded 956 arrests on Sunday, 286 on Saturday, and 593 on Friday.
According to the Migration Policy Institute via the BBC, former President Joe Biden carried out 1.5 million deportations during his first four years, which “mirror the deportation numbers in Trump’s first term.”
Gomez, who previously produced the Netflix docuseries Living Undocumented, which focused on the lives of undocumented families in the United States, has been open in her support for immigration, particularly given her family’s experiences with it.
In an emotional op-ed for Time in October 2019, she stated that her aunt “was the first out of her family to cross the border from Mexico into the U.S. in the back of a truck in the 1970s.” According to the singer, her “grandparents followed” and her “father was born in Texas soon after.”
“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 said in her opinion piece.
The Only Murders in the Building heroine noticed that her story was not the usual, and commented while seeing footage about the eight subjects in Living Undocumented: “When I read news headlines or see debates regarding immigration erupt on social media, I become concerned for individuals in similar positions. “I am afraid for my country.”
