Shikha Dalmia on the Problem With Deporting Justin Bieber

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Miami Beach P.D.

Many on the right have been demanding that President Obama crack down on illegal aliens and uphold the rule of law before they'll talk immigration reform. "We are not against all immigration," they insist, "only the illegal kind." If that's the case, they should be defending the right of Canadian singer Justin Bieber to stay in America instead of joining the legally baseless movement demanding his deportation.

There are problems with conservatives joining the push to have Bieber deported more serious than the naïve belief that sending him across the squiggly lines on a map would protect America in the age of globalization. Chief among them, writes Shikha Dalmia, is that it would require President Obama to exert executive powers that he constitutionally doesn't have.