A 19-year-old foreigner receives a visa to live and work in the United States. But he has numerous run-ins with the law in this country.
He is accused of drag-racing. He is charged with driving under the influence, resisting arrest and driving with an expired driver’s license. He admits to police that he spent a long night drinking beer, smoking marijuana and taking prescription pills.
A neighbor accuses the same teenager and his friends of throwing eggs at his house and causing thousands of dollars in damage, spurring police to open a criminal investigation. On top of that, police repeatedly get called to his house for loud parties, and neighbors complain that he drives at high speeds through their neighborhood.
Legal troubles like these can often result in foreign workers seeing their visas revoked and deported. But that’s not likely when you are Justin Bieber, one of the world’s biggest pop stars.
Speculation over whether Bieber, a Canadian performer, could be kicked out of the United States has been swirling ever since Bieber was arrested last month in Miami Beach after being accused of drag-racing.
As of Wednesday, at least 256,670 people had signed a White House petition calling for Bieber to be deported. “(Bieber is) not only threatening the safety of our people but he is also a terrible influence on our nation(’s) youth,” the petition says.
Immigration experts say Bieber’s legal problems could be enough to put his legal status in the U.S. in jeopardy.
But they also say it’s unlikely that a celebrity as rich and famous as Bieber will be deported even if convicted of some of the charges he faces.
“I don’t think it will happen,” said Carl Shusterman, a former immigration prosecutor who is now a private immigration lawyer in Los Angeles. “He’s a big moneymaker.”
Another former immigration prosecutor, Monika Sud-Devaraj, agreed.
“He’s such a high-profile case,” said Sud-Devaraj, now a private immigration lawyer in Phoenix. “My guess is they’d have to run it up the flagpole to Washington before they got approval to do that.”
Which raises questions about the subjectiveness of the country’s immigration system at a time when deportations have increased to record levels under President Barack Obama’s administration, immigration activists say.
“I think it gives you a very glaring example of how twisted the deportation policy is and how bizarrely administrated it is,” said U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijlava, D-Ariz, a critic of Obama’s deportation policies. “It’s pointless to think of Justin Bieber to be deported because he won’t be. Money and popularity have its rewards.”
Last year, the U.S. deported 368,644 people, which included both immigrants in the country legally and illegally. Of those, 628 were from Canada, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. The majority of those deported, 241,493, were from Mexico, according to ICE.
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