Donald Trump's border czar has responded to Selena Gomez's sobbing video over deportations, saying the administration has 'no apologies' and that anyone who doesn't like it should take it up with Congress.
The sweeping raids across the country have seen violent criminals rounded up and sent packing on government flights at break-neck speed.
Liberals and celebrities are in shock, despite Trump promising for months that they would happen on his first day back in office.
Among them is Gomez, who posted - then deleted - a tearful video to her followers.
Spearheading the immigration overhaul is border czar Tom Homan, who issued a scathing response to Gomez's video meltdown.
'If they don't like it, then go to Congress and change the law. We're going to do this operation without apology,' Homan told Fox News.
'We're gonna make our community safer... It is all for the good of this nation. And we're gonna keep going. No apologies. We're moving forward.'
In her recording, the actress, 32, sobbed as she reacted to Trump's threat of mass deportations of all undocumented immigrants, which has ignited fears of family separations.
A week into Trump's second presidency and his efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have carried out thousands of arrests.
ICE's daily arrests - which averaged 311 in the year ending Sept. 30 - stayed fairly steady in the first days after Trump took office, then spiked dramatically Sunday to 956 and Monday to 1,179.
Trump has been unhappy with the number of arrests so far and has directed federal immigration officials to meet higher detention quotas. He has ordered ICE to raise the arrest numbers from a few hundred a day to at least 1,200 to 1,500.
'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,' Gomez said in the since-deleted recording on Monday.
The Wizards of Waverly Place alum captioned the post: 'I'm sorry [Mexican flag emoji].'
Homan denied that children are being targeted and doubled down that the administration is working to deport illegal migrants with criminal records.
'I don't think we've arrested any families. We've arrested public safety threats and national security threats, bottom-line,' he said.
'President Trump won the election on this one issue - securing our border and saving lives. What happened on our southern border in the last four years is the biggest national security threat our county has seen, at least in my lifetime.'
Gomez has since deleted the video after it did not sit well with social media users, who were quick to slam her for not using her reported net worth of $1.3 billion to take action herself.
Megyn Kelly also slammed the Emilia Perez actress for putting on a display of crocodile tears, claiming she wanted to push an agenda that her fans disagreed with.
'She deleted it after her fans taught her that the majority of the country stands behind these policies, but I'm sure she was shocked to get any blowback whatsoever,' Kelly said.
'She's unwell. Obviously, this is an unwell person… And by the way, anybody who takes their phone works up in tears and posts a video of themselves crying into their phone is sick. That's a sick person.
'Tears happen. They tend to happen privately. If they happen publicly. I think you should quickly move on and recover, but I don't understand the person who works it and tries to squeeze out more tears to make themselves look extra sad. 'I'm really sad. I know I have hundreds of millions [followers], but I hate this country.''
It comes as an illegal immigrant who has been convicted of child sex crimes shocked Dr. Phil on Sunday when he told him he was 'not really' a sex offender as he was taken into custody by immigration enforcement officers.
The TV host, 74, was embedded with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and Homan as they rounded up undocumented migrants in Chicago.
Dr. Phil, whose real name is Phil McGraw, grilled the detainee as he stood handcuffed in the street, video of the man's arrest revealed.
The television psychologist asked the man - who has since been identified as Sam Seda from Thailand - where he was born and if he had ever been deported from the US before. Sam confirmed he was not an American citizen, but claimed his mother is.
Homan then revealed that Sam was an 'illegal alien convicted of sex crimes involving children', claiming he was just one of many illegal criminals walking the streets of sanctuary cities as local authorities prevent federal agents from doing their jobs.
Dr. Phil addressed Sam again, asking: 'You've been charged with sex crimes with children?'
Sam simply replied: 'Not really.'
'Not really?!' a stunned Dr. Phil stated. 'And never been deported?'
'Nope,' Sam doubled down, leaving Dr. Phil apparently shocked.
Homan then told his agents: 'Let's take him in, process him, and lock him up.'
Immigration officials arrested nearly 1,000 illegal migrants on Sunday alone - capping off a week of nationwide raids that removed thousands of criminals from city streets.
The White House, hailing the federal agents who are 'working tirelessly to protect our communities', highlighted what it described as 'some of the worst' migrants to be rounded up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the weekend.
A Honduran national found with cocaine, fentanyl, and a firearm was arrested following a sting in Washington state, while a Jordanian national with suspected ties to the Islamic State was detained in Buffalo, New York.
ICE arrested a Mexican national with an active INTERPOL Red Notice who was wanted for murder in Los Angeles, as well as a gangster from El Salvador who was wanted for aggravated homicide.
At least two convicted child rapists were taken into custody over the weekend. Federal agents also detained dozens of members of the violent Venezuelan crime gang Tren de Aragua (TdA).
The Trump Administration has quickly moved to ramp up deportations and arrest illegal migrants who pose 'public safety threats ', specifically targeting sanctuary cities such as Chicago, San Francisco and San Jose - which bar cooperation between city police and immigration agents.
However, the president has reportedly been unhappy with the low number and has directed officials to meet higher detention quotas.
He ordered ICE to raise the arrest numbers from a few hundred a day to at least 1,200 to 1,500, according to The Washington Post.
Trump ordered each of ICE's field offices to make 75 arrests per day, and managers would be held accountable for missing those targets.
Federal officers are operating with a new sense of mission - 'the worst go first' but 'nobody gets a free pass anymore.'
People considered public safety and national security threats are still the top priority, said Matt Elliston, director of ICE's Baltimore field office.
Trump has ruled that officers can now arrest people without legal status if they run across them while looking for migrants targeted for removal. Under Joe Biden's Administration, such 'collateral arrests' were banned.
'We're looking for those public safety, national security cases. The big difference being, nobody has a free pass anymore,' Elliston added.
The number of collateral arrests has fluctuated, he said. By the end of Monday across Maryland, ICE had arrested 13 people. Of those, nine were targets and the other four were people ICE came across during the course of the morning.
Of those 'collaterals,' one had an aggravated theft conviction. Another had already been deported once, and two others had final orders of removal.
Trump also has lifted longtime guidelines that restricted ICE from operating at 'sensitive locations' such as schools, churches or hospitals.
That decision has worried many migrants and advocates who fear children will be traumatized by seeing their parents arrested in the drop-off line at school or that migrants needing medical care won't go to the hospital for fear of arrest.
Elliston pushed back on those fears, saying it's been exceedingly rare for ICE to enter one of those locations. In his 17 years on the job, he said he's gone into a school only once and that was to help stop an active shooter.
He said the removal of other guidelines that had restricted ICE operations at courthouses makes a bigger difference in the agency's work. But getting rid of the sensitive locations policy does affect ICE in more subtle ways.
What has not changed, Elliston said, is that these are targeted operations. ICE has a list of people they're going after as opposed to indiscriminately going to a workplace or apartment building looking for people in the country illegally.
