Justin Bieber has a history of brushes with the law, but then, immigrants from Canada are treated very differently before the law than those from Mexico and places further south. In 2011, 14,331 immigrants were deported for the kind of traffic violation that Justin Bieber committed recently.
At times immigration law appears almost arbitrary. Last year it was reported by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice reported:
“… A suspected undocumented immigrant with a prior or contemporaneous conviction for possessing less than an ounce of marijuana—which is no longer even a crime in California—is more likely to face ICE detention (73.1 percent) than one with a rape conviction (69.7 percent). Traffic offenders are more likely to be booked into ICE detention (75.8 percent) than violent offenders (67.5 percent).”
Whatever happens to Justin Bieber will not change the reality that immigrants from the North are treated very differently than those coming from the South. It is estimated that last year 151,835 immigrants without criminal convictions were deported. The overwhelming majority of those deportees were from countries to the South. It is hard not to believe race plays a major role in this problem, but any way we look at it, immigration law seems broken.
(The report from CJCJ and Alternet link included below)
http://www.alternet.org/immigration/immigrants-get-deported-far-less-justin-bieber-did