In October 2024, the Trump campaign faced widespread criticism for a comment comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made at a Trump rally in Madison Square, calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.” The remark spread like wildfire, causing Democrats to celebrate while Republicans worried. The immediate focus of both parties was how this affected Pennsylvania, a state with a significant population of Puerto Rican descent. Nearly half a million people of Puerto Rican descent live in Pennsylvania, but there’s a place with a much larger Puerto Rican population that no one paid attention to: Puerto Rico.
Fast forward to November 2024: More than 150 million people voted in the 2024 presidential election. In addition to these votes, approximately 1.14 million people turned out to vote in the presidential straw poll in Puerto Rico. In 2020, the New Progressive Party in Puerto Rico passed Act No. 58, which allowed Puerto Ricans to cast a vote for president in a nonbinding straw poll. After hours of tallying these votes, the citizens of Puerto Rico were shown how much their vote mattered. Since Puerto Rico is an integral part of the United States with a population of more than 3.2 million people—larger than that of 19 states—the U.S. expressed its value by doing absolutely nothing with the votes cast.
On July 25, 1898, U.S. troops invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War. After more than 125 years of military, economic, and political control, Puerto Rico has yet to receive statehood. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory: legally part of the U.S. while simultaneously not being a part of it. It remains a modern colony with no sovereignty or representation in the federal government. Puerto Rico, along with the District of Columbia and four other territories—Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa—votes for a representative from the territory to the U.S. House. The representative, called the resident commissioner, is a nonvoting member who is only allowed to participate in committees. The governor of the territory handles most of its affairs since it lacks meaningful representation within the federal government.
Puerto Rico and the other unincorporated territories are governed based on the Insular Cases, a collection of Supreme Court rulings from the early 20th century that limited constitutional rights in territories. The most significant case was Downes v. Bidwell in 1901, which decided that “the Constitution does not follow the flag.” Downes remains precedent, restricting the application of many constitutional provisions to territories. The case defined Puerto Rico as “foreign to the United States in a domestic sense,” giving the U.S. free rein to establish an administration rooted in exploitation and colonialism.
Although most of the Insular Cases were decided in 1901, these landmark rulings continued to influence the Supreme Court. In 1922, two decades after Downes, Balzac v. Porto Rico determined that citizens in territories are not entitled to a trial by jury, extending constitutional restrictions. In 2022, more than a century after Downes, the Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Vaello Madero that the Constitution allowed the exclusion of Puerto Rico from benefits such as the Supplemental Security Income program (SSI). Justice Neil Gorsuch, in his concurring opinion, called for overruling the Insular Cases, acknowledging that they “have no foundation in the Constitution and rest instead on racial stereotypes.”
Six referendums have been held on the statehood of Puerto Rico, the most recent in 2020. Statehood won, but the vote was almost evenly split. Congress holds the power to admit new states through the Admission Act; however, a lack of bipartisanship prevents the passage of statehood for Puerto Rico anytime soon.
Puerto Rico is stuck in limbo between a partisan Congress in stalemate and 125-year-old precedents rooted in racial and ethnic bigotry. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services categorizes voting in a federal election as both a right and a responsibility of a citizen. By barricading this right, the U.S. denies the citizenship of 3.2 million people. Colonial exploitation has silenced millions. Their voices are unheard, and they are cast aside. A populace living under a ruler they didn’t vote for is living under tyranny. By silencing the ballots of millions of citizens, the U.S. has reversed its 250-year history, becoming the kind of government it fought for independence from.
