Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz's performance was scheduled for Monday night at Latin music event at the White House. However, it was suspended after the shooting at Washington Navy House, where at least 13 people were killed and four others injured.
Sanz was expected to share the stage with Ricky Martin, Gloria Estefan and Arturo Sandoval, among others, at the event called "Música Latina: In Performance at the White House," hosted by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Other artists that were set to perform were Natalie Cole, Lila Downs, Raul Malo, Prince Royce, Romeo Santos, Alejandro Sanz and Marco Antonio Solis, according to Fox News Latino.
Sanz took to Twitter to announce the event's cancelation and to say that President Obama was "very loving and close." The singer talked to the press about Spain and the crisis the country is struggling with. "I am proud, my country is always with me, it comes with me wherever I go. We'll get out of this, I am convinced of that. Spain has gone through many difficult times throughout its history, as all countries of the world, including the U.S.," said Sanz, according to Spanish news site El País.
"There is nothing new. Some crises are deeper in some countries, in Spain it has greatly affected employment that is why it's harder to recover from that. But we will leave it behind, I am convinced, we will emerge stronger than ever," said the singer.
Sanz also addressed the importance of launching a comprehensive immigration reform that legalizes the undocumented population in the U.S. "I know many stories of people, of their immigration, how they got to this country, how much it costs them to get papers to live here. Reform is something that is urgently need," the singer told reporters, according to El País.
"Of course, a country cannot be completely open but, as someone rightly said, people cannot be illegal; someone may not have papers but a person cannot be illegal, because that goes against the very essence of humanity," Sanz added.
The singer believes that "more has to be done" in order to achieve an immigration reform because "if there still are undocumented people living in this country since many years ago that's because it has not been done enough yet."