Renowned talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw has recently addressed a video posted by actress and singer Selena Gomez, in which she was visibly upset about President Donald Trump’s actions regarding the crackdown on illegal immigrants.
Dr. Phil had the opportunity to spend time with ICE agents in Chicago and now believes that if Gomez had witnessed the same things he did, she might not have reacted the way she did in her video.
During an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Dr. Phil expressed his opinion that Gomez may not have been crying for the specific individuals affected by the ICE operations, as he had firsthand access to the events that led to the arrest of over 100 people since Sunday.
‘I wanted to see [the immigration enforcement raids] for myself, Dr Phil told the Mail. ‘There were no restrictions. There was no room I couldn’t go into. There was no meeting I couldn’t attend.’
On Monday, Gomez’s Instagram video attracted a lot of attention, as the Only Murders in the Building star broke down in tears claiming, ‘All my people are getting attacked, the children. I don’t understand.’
Gomez, 32, quickly took down the post, but not before it was viewed by tens of thousands. Dr Phil was charitable in his response to the actress.
‘She seemed to me to be very sincere in her empathy for these individuals, but I’m not sure who she was identifying with… I don’t think she would relate to the people that were taken down in this operation,’ he said.
In a 4.00 am pre-raid meeting, Dr Phil recounted standing by as ICE agents were briefed on the individuals that they would be targetting.
‘I certainly don’t think she was crying for these individuals,’ said Dr Phil, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail after he was reportedly granted full access to the ICE operations that rounded up more than 100 individuals since Sunday.
Renowed talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw has responded to actress and singer Selena Gomez (above), who posted a hysterical video this week sobbing and railing against President Donald Trump ‘s ongoing illegal immigrant crackdown.
‘They were reading off the charges and the convictions in the command center – murder, murder, child sex crimes, child rape, aggravated assault.’
Before the agents deployed, they were specifically instructed to avoid any violent confrontations with their targets.
‘Safety was their number one concern that they talked about,’ reported Dr Phil. ‘I was very impressed at the professionalism of all of this.’
Then, in the field, Dr Phil said he saud witnessed even more evidence that convinced him that Gomez’s characterization of the raids were erroneous.
‘[ICE agents] are focusing on the worst first. That is the way they describe it and I was able to see how much investigative work they put in to these targets.’
He was accompanied along by Trump’s newly named ‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan, a former acting ICE director. And during the evening, agents detained an alleged illegal immigrant from Thailand, who was said to be a convicted child sex offender.
‘It was very clear that this is this individual is a danger to the community,’ Dr Phil said. ‘I don’t think anyone would argue that it’s a better community with him in it.’
Dr Phil also pointed out that illegal immigrant gangs, like Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and the Salvadorian group MS-13 are known to target their countrymen.
!['[ICE agents] are focusing on the worst first. That is the way they describe it and I was able to see how much investigative work they put in to these targets.'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/28/20/94607629-14334585-Dr_Phil_said_Selena_Gomez_was_unknowingly_crying_about_worst_of_-a-1_1738096857891.jpg)
‘[ICE agents] are focusing on the worst first. That is the way they describe it and I was able to see how much investigative work they put in to these targets.’
‘They prey upon [their own people],’ he added. ‘So, you know, I would suspect that Selena’s empathy is certainly not for the people that Mr. Holman is going after.’
Indeed, Dr Phil believes that much of the criticism of the ICE enforcement operations are misguided.
‘All of this in the [mainstream] media is just fear-mongering,’ he said, countering claims that federal agent are conducting indiscriminate sweeps of communities.
‘That is not what they’re doing,’ he said. ‘They’re not targeting farms or agricultural environments. They’re not going into businesses and checking people’s immigration status.
‘I asked all the hard questions. I asked straight up, “Are you sweeping neighborhoods where you believe there are concentrations of Illegal aliens?” and they said “absolutely not.”‘
‘I said, ‘Are you going to schools and taking people and students out of schools? They said ‘absolutely not.”
‘These agents are after the bad guys… There’s been no much misinformation out there,’ Dr Phil continued, noting that even Illinois’s Democratic Governor JB Pritzker has alleged that ICE agent are going into elementary schools to look for undocumented children.
The irony of the situation, according to Dr Phil, is that is these so-called santuary cities that force the hand of ICE – and make it necessary to conduct these raids.
‘This is one of the things that I don’t understand about sanctuary cities,’ he explained.
Before the agents deployed, they were specifically instructed to avoid any violent confrontations with their targets. (Pictured: Border Czar Tom Homan joins ICE agents in Chicago on January 26, 2025)
‘If they will just give a heads up to ICE officials when they have these [dangerous criminals] in custody, then ICE could take them from the jail or as they’re leaving the jail, which will keep the ICE agents out of the community.’
Now, the question for these sanctuary city leaders is, according to Dr Phil, do they want violent criminals turned loose again?
‘When I saw these people being arrested, I thought, “Should we call the mayor and ask do you want them back? You want to turn them loose?”‘
‘And of course the answer would be no.’
