Selena Gomez shared a candid video with fans on her social media accounts today (27 January).
The ‘Wolves’ singer has been an outspoken supporter of immigration in the past, but the actions of Donald Trump in his first week in office were enough to bring her to tears.
Gomez’s video came just a day after 956 people were arrested in a nationwide immigration crackdown the BBC reports, in one of the bills that Trump signed as President after taking his place in the Oval Office.
Other bills include pardoning 1,500 US Capitol rioters and for the nation to only recognize two genders
Despite being born in Texas, US, Gomez’s father is of Mexican descent and she feels close to that part of her heritage, having previously called herself a ‘proud third-generation American-Mexican’.
The 32-year-old then posted a now-deleted video on Instagram, where she could be seen in tears, sobbing and expressing her sadness at Trump’s bill aimed at cutting down on immigration.
Captioning the video ‘I’m sorry’ with a Mexican flag emoji, she said: “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 concluded, while wiping her tears away.
Soon after, she took the video down and posted a black screen with the caption: “Apparently it’s not ok to show empathy for people.”
Prior to the arrest of 956 people on Sunday (26 January), the most in one day since Trump became the 47th US President, the BBC further reported that 286 arrests were made on Saturday, as well as 593 on Friday, and 538 on Thursday.
ICE statistics further reveal that more than 1,000 people were removed or repatriated on Thursday.
The President called the situation at the US-Mexico border a ‘national emergency’, giving the green light for American armed forces to police the border as part of the new order.
It further declared that Mexican drug cartels are classed as ‘foreign terrorist organisations’, while automatic citizenship that used to be granted to children of undocumented immigrants that were born in the country will now be limited.
American citizenship is now described as ‘a priceless and profound gift’ in the order.
The 32-year-old took down both of her stories (Instagram/selenagomez)
A further executive order also suspended the US Refugee Admissions Programme.
It stated that this would be ‘until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States’.
It reads: “The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security may jointly determine to admit aliens to the United States as refugees on a case-by-case basis, in their discretion, but only so long as they determine that the entry of such aliens as refugees is in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.”
