Never Say Never: Bieber Deportation Lands on Obama's Desk
Dan Harr/Invision/AP
We The People petition gets enough signatures to require a White House response.
The White House has to address an unlikely issue via its We The People petition site: Justin Bieber's immigration status.
Over 220,000 signatures have been affixed to a petition submitted Jan. 23 that wants the Obama administration to "deport Justin Bieber and revoke his green card." The threshold for an official White House reply is 100,000 signatures, which the petition hit Tuesday afternoon.
The petition comes after a bad few weeks for Bieber. The Canadian pop star was arrested on the petition's posting day for DUI, resisting arrest and driving with an expired license in Miami Beach. The 19-year-old superstar and a friend were stopped by police for speeding in a rented Lamborghini and Ferrari. A toxicology report later emerged reading that the singer had been using marijuana and Xanax before he was arrested.
Bieber is also under investigation for a vandalism incident near his California home earlier in the month.
The petition says that Bieber should be considered a threat and calls the singer "dangerous."
We the people of the United States feel that we are being wrongly represented in the world of pop culture. We would like to see the dangerous, reckless, destructive, and drug abusing, Justin Bieber deported and his green card revoked."
Bieber's popularity was largely waged through social media, as his big break came in 2009 after music industry executive Scooter Braun stumbled on videos of the then 13-year-old singer on YouTube. Before his first record, My World, was released in November 2009, his YouTube videos garnered millions of views through social sharing. Bieber's management team encourages his mostly young and mostly female fandom to use social media to mobilize. Bieber was the first celebrity to have over 40 million Twitter followers and his is the second most-followed account on the service. Bieber trails Katy Perry, who broke 50 million followers this week.
Three of Bieber's most devoted fans -- called "Beliebers" -- have posted petitions opposing any deportation of the singer. All three cite his youth as a reason for his "mistakes." One compares Bieber to R&B singer Chris Brown, who is a U.S. citizen and has an extensive criminal record ("Just because he's Justin Bieber and not some rapper doesn't mean he deserves this.") As of Jan. 31, none of the three petitions have garnered more than 6,000 signatures.
Because of Bieber's Twitter following and his celebrity, his mugshot quickly went viral after his arrest.
Has something happened? pic.twitter.com/r1RQs5d72C
— Janine Gibson (@janinegibson) January 23, 2014