Posted on 02/14/2017 9:02:58 AM PST by cll
Although Puerto Rico is on its way to holding a status plebiscite over the summer and the governing New Progressive Party has petitioned Congress for Puerto Rico’s admission as a state, some argue the island will have a higher chance of becoming a state if U.S. lawmakers were to declare Puerto Rico an incorporated territory en route to statehood.
Right now, the dominant argument among all sectors is that Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory, but pro-statehood lawyer Gregorio Igartúa, who has taken several cases to the courts that seek to grant more rights to Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico, presented arguments in favor of incorporating Puerto Rico.
~ snip ~
...Igartúa said the Task Force erred in its assessment that Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory, arguing that the legal relationship Puerto Rico has with the U.S. is that of a “de facto” incorporated territory in transit to statehood. Moreover, Puerto Rico has a federalist relation with the U.S. as the 50 states do since the island’s constitution was adopted in 1952, he said. According to Igartúa, the Task Force has ignored numerous federal statutes and actions as well as other judicial rulings that already treat Puerto Rico as a state despite court rulings to the contrary.
“The degree of incorporation of Puerto Rico to be like a state can be considered by implication [to be so] strong as to exclude any other view than that it is an incorporated territory of the United States,” he said in a letter to the Task Force.
When the U.S. took over Puerto Rico in 1898, through the Treaty of Paris, the island had been an overseas province of Spain for more than 400 years..Igartúa said within that legal source of authority, Congress began a gradual process of incorporation,
(Excerpt) Read more at caribbeanbusiness.com ...
If you are not very familiar with the issues involved - meaning, if your knee-jerk reaction to the prospect of statehood for the territories is "Are you crazy?! Four million new Democrats?! Get rid of them!" - then you really need to read the entire article.
Don’t need any more guaranteed Democrat welfare states, sorry.
Actually, I stopped reading right here. I don't feel like getting any more mind-screwed today.
The question and problem is simple. Either the majority of the citizens are willing to accept the duties of statehood (i.e., PERSONAL FEDERAL INCOME TAXES) or they are not. Further, either they make a good enough case to meet the requirement that other states accept it into their union or they do not.
It isn't just a case of getting two more Democrat Senators and a couple how many Representatives because you complain about this or that. Prove your case and satisfy everyone according to the established rules or SHUT UP.
Just what we need.
Two more demonRAT senators, two more demonRAT congressmen, and two more demonRAT presidential electors.
Puerto Rico has every right to petition to be a state. I don’t think anyone can really deny that.
On the lighter side, I’d like to see England, Wales, and Scotland also apply for statehood.
Might as well.
NO PR NEVER gets statehood ever. Let’s cut them loose so they can be their own country. We don’t need another 2 Democrat Senators and three Democrat Congressmen forever.
Statehood gets voted down in referendums.
The US has the following inhabited territories:
US Virgin Islands
Puerto Rico
Guam
American Samoa
North Mariana Islands
I don’t see any continuing interests for the US in either the US Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico. Time to spin them off as independent. Other Caribbean Islands exist just fine as independent islands.
Cut it free.
We already have too many dysfunctional states and cities.
Statehood won the 2012 referendum.
We don’t need another “taker” state, and there’s no way they’ll be a contributor state. Cut ‘em loose.
Whatever path it is on, do not repeat DO NOT let it become a State of the United States! It can become a county or two of Florida FULL STOP.
Any amendment to the US Constitution requires 3/4’s of states to ratify. Talk of statehood for DC and PR puts needed amendments in limbo and puts dangerous amendments into play.
What makes you think that will be the case? Puerto Ricans on the island don’t follow the same voting/ideology trends as those in the north-east U.S.
And recently-moved Puerto Ricans in southern states are more conservative than those who arrived in the 50s to New York and what not. In fact, everything indicates that Florida Puerto Ricans swung for Trump in the last election, just like they did for W in 2004.
They like are jobs.
One word.
English.
Must be official language.
You are correct. The Insular Case were repugnant to the Constitution. Nothing in the Constitution allows the Congress to treat territories aquired by treaty as if they are not fully US Territory.
The precedent set by the Louisiana Purchase is that Territories acquired by treaty become fully part of the United States. The same applied to the Purchase of Florida, The the Division of the Oregon Country, The Annexation Treaty with the Republic of Texas. The territories acquired after the War with Mexico, the Alaska Purchase, and the Annexation of the Republic of Hawaii.
Only the territory acquired after the War with Spain and the treaty dividing Samoa between the US and the German Empire were classed as “unincorporated”.
That category had never existed before.
The Constitution does not grant the Congress the authority to pick and choose where the Constitution applies. It applies to the United States and all territories under it’s jurisdiction.
As we did with another relic of the Spanish-American War, the Philippines, we should have cut P/R loose in 1945 to independence.
It already is.
CUT THEM LOOSE
We don’t want to subject them to more old white male privileged imperialism
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