It took the White House nearly three months to respond to one of the most popular petitions to ever hit the We The People online petition site–and they didn’t really respond at all, unless you count “no response” as a response. I mean, it’s kind of a response.
For any Justin Bieber haters out there that thought the Obama administration would act to remove the Canadian pop star/leather pants aficionado from these United States, I’m sorry to tell you that your hopes have been dashed. The White House has finally posted a response to the popular “Deport Justin Bieber and Revoke His Green Card” petition that hit the We The People site back in January.
“Thanks for your petition and your participation in We the People…Sorry to disappoint, but we won’t be commenting on this one,” says the White House.
Ok.
From the response:
The We the People terms of participation state that, “to avoid the appearance of improper influence, the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government in its response to a petition.”
So we’ll leave it to others to comment on Mr. Bieber’s case, but we’re glad you care about immigration issues. Because our current system is broken. Too many employers game the system by hiring undocumented workers, and 11 million people are living in the shadows.
That status quo isn’t good for our economy or our country. We need common-sense immigration reform to make sure everyone plays by the same set of rules.
Not only is it the right thing to do morally, it’s the right thing for our country: Independent economists say immigration reform will grow our economy and shrink our deficits by almost $1 trillion in the next 20 years. For those of you counting at home, that’s 12.5 billion concert tickets — or 100 billion copies of Mr. Bieber’s debut album.
It’s a nice deflect into an immigration reform discussion.
The petition currently sports over 273,000 signatures. It claims that “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. He is not only threatening the safety of our people but he is also a terrible influence on our nations youth. We the people would like to remove Justin Bieber from our society.”
The White House will often respond to some of the sillier petitions to gain popularity and ignore many of the more important ones. Though the White House has refused to make any statements on this clearly important issue, I guess another agency will have to figure out something.
I mean, we did lose the bet.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
