The Status of Puerto Rico as a Territory of the United States

Abstract

Ever since its annexation by the United States in 1898, the status of Puerto Rico has never proven satisfactory for either side. While Puerto Ricans have US citizenship and receive federal aid without paying federal taxes, they do not have representation in Congress and cannot vote in presidential elections. Puerto Rico therefore still meets the definition of a colony, and the mismanagement resulting from having two separate governments has allowed the island to decay into a failing state.

The status of Puerto Rico has not been the subject of much attention from the US government, as it has been preoccupied with more pressing domestic and foreign policy issues, and it can be difficult to tell which category Puerto Rico belongs in. However the US government wishes to define the relationship, Puerto Rico’s economic crisis can no longer be ignored, and the current political arrangement is no longer tenable. The time has come to prepare Puerto Rico for independence through a process that is managed, peaceful, and mutually beneficial, so that the island’s government can sort its problems out and the friendly relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico will continue well into the future.

“Our forefathers never envisioned that the United States would keep territories indefinitely, as imperial powers sought to keep colonies, thereby denying fundamental rights to some citizens.

Given the intent of the framers of the Constitution, the residents of Puerto Rico must either preserve their American citizenship with all its rights and obligations under statehood or renounce it to govern themselves separately as a nation. There is no provision in the Constitution for second-class American citizenship.”[1]

---Luis Fortuño, 10^th Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (2009-2013)

In terms of constitutional and international law, the relationship between the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the United States is a controversial subject. Puerto Rico is a Spanish-speaking territory far removed from the US mainland that does not have any particular importance in terms of geostrategic location or natural resources. While the US-Puerto Rico pairing has proven fairly successful, Puerto Rico is not a good candidate for statehood and would probably be better off now as an independent nation.

The relationship between the US and Puerto Rico has never been clearly defined from a legal standpoint. Even now, the commonwealth relationship does not conform to post-colonial norms for international law.[2] The position of the US government as recently as 2005 is that, as a “property” of the United States, Washington has the sole authority to dispense with Puerto Rico without the island’s citizens or government having any say.[3]

Most residents of Puerto Rico had been content with the commonwealth status that has prevailed since the early 1950s, but the island is now in severe economic turmoil and a significant contributing factor is the political arrangement with the US. For far too long Puerto Ricans have either been unauthorized (because of their commonwealth status) or unwilling to manage their fiscal affairs responsibly, and dependence on federal welfare has only caused the island’s economy to further atrophy.

The simple fact is that Puerto Ricans are subject to laws and policies made by a government in which they have no real voice.[4] Additionally, a sizable contingent of Puerto Ricans view the dominance of the United States as a theft of their cultural identity, not just their political freedom.[5] Now frustrated with the pathetic performance of their local government in letting the fiscal crisis grow out of control, and tired of the indifference shown by the federal government, Puerto Ricans have realized that having two governments is tantamount to having none. A referendum showed majority support among Puerto Ricans for statehood for the first time in 2012 after other referenda failed to gain majority support in 1967, 1993, and 1998.[6]

From the standpoint of the US, adding a debt-bloated, non-English-speaking state in the Union would have profound negative consequences for everyone involved. On the other hand, maintaining the current status and thereby having to continuously bail out Puerto Rico is unsustainable. The Congress of the US, which has sole authority over the governance of Puerto Rico according to Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution,[7] must now find a way to reconcile the territory’s status in a way that protects the interests of Americans on the mainland as well as the residents of Puerto Rico. The need for action is urgent.[8] The only viable solution is for the federal government to thoughtfully transition Puerto Rico toward independence in a way that prevents the island from becoming a failed state, which is what it is already bound for under the present arrangement.

HISTORY OF U.S. POLICY REGARDING PUERTO RICO’S STATUS

In 1898 the Treaty of Paris ended the Spanish-American War and made Puerto Rico and a few other territories the property of the US, which meant the United States had officially become an imperial power for the first time. This presented the US government with a constitutional challenge it was not prepared for. The Foraker Act of 1900 set up a system of limited popular government in Puerto Rico, and the Jones Act of 1917 gave all residents of Puerto Rico US citizenship,[9] but the status of the island in terms of its relationship with the United States was left unresolved. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, waves of political violence against the colonial government in Puerto Rico plagued the island.[10] While much of this stemmed from Marxist agitators, a lot of the criticism was legitimate and Congress knew it had to make a better attempt to resolve the status issue.

By mid-century, the world was in the throes of widespread decolonization but the US wanted Puerto Rico for strategic purposes and Puerto Ricans did not want to lose their economic ties to the US even if they were not given the fairest treatment in trade deals.[11] It seemed as if most Puerto Ricans were content with their homeland being a territory of the US, and neither the US nor the people of Puerto Rico desired making it a state.[12] In July 1950 President Truman signed the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act intended to give Puerto Ricans a greater degree of sovereignty by forming their own constitution, just as each of the states had done. Because Puerto Rico supposedly submitted to US hegemony voluntarily, and because the US attempted to allow Puerto Rico a greater degree of autonomy, the UN removed Puerto Rico from its list of non-self-governing territories even though the island is only partially self-governing at best.[13]

Nevertheless, by 1952 Puerto Rico had adopted its own constitution recognizing the US president as the head of state, and the “Commonwealth” era began. Legally speaking, Puerto Rico still very much resembles a colony,[14] but the commonwealth arrangement prevails to this day even though the public debt disaster is making it look increasingly unsustainable. Furthermore, the status dilemma has proven to be an inexhaustible font of propaganda for anti-US demagogues who, while caring not a whit for the Puerto Rican people, have ceaselessly complained about their alleged colonial exploitation for no other reason than to shame the United States.

In response to accusations made by other countries that Puerto Rico was being treated unfairly by the US government, a Joint Resolution was issued by Congress in 1979 that reaffirmed the US government’s commitment to Puerto Rican self-determination. In 1989 the issue of reconsidering Puerto Rico’s status was introduced into the US Senate.[15] During the second term of the Clinton administration, Rep. Don Young (R-AL) and Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) introduced legislation seeking an answer to the question of whether Puerto Ricans wish to continue with their commonwealth status. One month before leaving office, President Clinton issued Executive Order 13183 establishing the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status. President Bush continued the Task Force and issued another Executive Order stating that it should meet at least once every two years. The Task Force issued reports in 2005 and 2007, but in 2009 President Obama issued Executive Order 13517 which made the work of the Task Force less about self-determination for Puerto Ricans and more about pushing the social and economic agenda of the Obama administration more deeply into Puerto Rican society. After the surprising results of the 2012 referendum, federal action on the status issue has stalled and the focus now is on trying to solve Puerto Rico’s financial crisis.

THE CURRENT CRISIS AND THE NEED FOR ACTION

Puerto Rico’s debt is at least 72 billion dollars even though it has only about 3.5 million residents. If Puerto Rico were a state, it would have a higher public debt-to-personal income ratio than any of the 50 states. Governor Alejandro García Padilla, the head of Puerto Rico’s government, recently testified before Congress that the island is effectively out of money. As neither a state nor a local jurisdiction within the US, Puerto Rico cannot declare bankruptcy but Congressional legislation has been introduced that would give the island Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. That, however, is not a long-term solution.

Puerto Rico suffers not only from an underperforming, debt-riddled economy but the socio-economic maladies that typically accompany it. The Puerto Rican government’s lack of authority to manage the island’s borders—which resides with the US Congress—has been blamed for its failure to control the illicit drug trade and its inability to lower the extremely high rate of violent crime in Puerto Rico.[16] Mass migration to the US in recent years is indicative of the severity of the economic crisis on the island.[17]

Puerto Rico is on the brink of total collapse, and the irony is that the US government is both the enabler of, and the scapegoat for, virtually all of the island’s woes. That is not to say the federal government caused the existential problems now threatening Puerto Rico, but it did neglect the growing welfare state for far too long and then reflexively responded with bailouts that only further contributed to the runaway public debt. Congress deserves blame for not properly carrying out its supervisory role, but the fact is that Puerto Rican politicians and the people who voted for them are mostly responsible for the mess by continually increasing public spending and failing to create an attractive business climate. Gridlock reigns as each government expects the other to take the initiative in reforming Puerto Rico’s economy. If the issue of Puerto Rico’s status is not resolved soon, there really will be no limit to how bad the crisis can become.

THE U.S. MAINLAND’S POSITION ON THE STATUS ISSUE

Not surprisingly, the US government spends little time on issues concerning Puerto Ricans because their political representation in the US is hardly satisfactory. Puerto Ricans cannot vote for president (although, oddly enough, they can vote in presidential primaries) and they have no representation in the Congress except for a non-voting official known as the Resident Commissioner. The US government is therefore constantly preoccupied with more pressing domestic and foreign policy issues than Puerto Rico’s status and it is difficult to tell which of those categories this issue belongs in, despite the US government’s assertion that Puerto Rico’s status is an “internal matter”, not an international one.[18]

On those rare occasions when the tribulations of Puerto Rico are the subject of any Congressional attention at all, it comes almost exclusively from the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and the House Committee on Natural Resources, particularly the Subcommittees on Federal Lands; and Indian, Insular & Alaska Native Affairs. The western-state politicians who usually comprise these Committees might have good intentions but are far removed from Puerto Rico, and those with strong ties to the island are typically liberal Democrats who offer destructive political solutions such as more spending on Puerto Rican welfare or making it a state. US presidents rarely speak on Puerto Rican issues, and although the Obama administration has made the usual overtures toward self-determination, it had to back away after the 2012 referendum produced results it was not prepared for.

As for the US citizenry, much hay has been made of the most recent status referendum in Puerto Rico, but the opinion of the mainland population is just as important. The status of Puerto Rico is not a pressing issue for most citizens or pollsters in the US, and the scant polling that has been done reveals no helpful information. In 1998, a Gallup poll showed a nearly three-way tie: 28% for independence, 30% for statehood, and 26% for the status quo.[19]                

PUERTO RICO’S POSITION ON THE STATUS ISSUE

The status question dominates Puerto Rican politics. It is the central issue of the two major political parties—one is pro-statehood and the other pro-commonwealth—and their respective solutions to the status dilemma do not neatly coincide with the Democrat and Republican platforms. As a consequence, it is difficult to get a read on how Puerto Ricans feel about the Democrat/Republican divide or the statehood debate by looking at election results alone. The ouster of a pro-statehood Republican governor on literally the same day statehood was a big winner on the status referendum epitomizes the confusion.  

Right now, both mainstream political parties in Puerto Rico are headed by liberal Democrats. The governor, Alejandro García Padilla, represents the pro-commonwealth Popular Democratic Party (PPD), and the Resident Commissioner is the fiercely pro-statehood Pedro Pierluisi, the titular head of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP). Rep. Pierluisi is a serious threat to the body politic of the United States, having used his position to introduce legislation intended to make Puerto Rico a state under ambiguous names such as the Puerto Rico Democracy Act (H.R. 2499) in 2010 and the Puerto Rico Status Resolution Act (H.R. 2000) in 2013 before finally introducing the boldly titled Puerto Rico Statehood Admission Process Act (H.R. 727) in 2015.        

The statehood threat is bipartisan. The previous governor Luis Fortuño has demonstrated an excellent understanding of the impossibility of maintaining Puerto Rico’s commonwealth status, but he is also a staunch advocate for statehood. Having achieved a modicum of fiscal success while governor of Puerto Rico, Fortuño was able to use his position as a Latino Republican leader—a rare specimen widely coveted by GOP elites—to spread pro-statehood propaganda to unsuspecting conservatives in the US.

Because the pro-independence side had chosen to boycott previous status referenda,[20] gauging the true opinions of Puerto Ricans toward independence becomes even more difficult. Wise Puerto Ricans have long been skeptical of the independence movement, correctly identifying it as a guise for a socialist takeover. The Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) is the largest among a handful of tiny socialist-independence parties that are faithful to the tradition of the independence movement’s inability to get out of its own way. These parties still rely on dated Marxist slogans and anti-US platitudes instead of building constructive political platforms and, not surprisingly, they have virtually no representation in Puerto Rico’s government at any level.

Another problem is that the two-tiered question format on the status referendum causes a lot of confusion about what Puerto Ricans truly want. The first question asks if the voter wishes to continue with the status quo, and if the answer is ‘no’, a second question asks the voter to choose independence, statehood, or something called a “free associated state”. Of the voters who answered ‘no’ to the first question, that last option was chosen by about one-third, statehood by 61% and independence by only 5.5% of those who bothered to choose one of three options; more than a quarter of ‘no’ voters simply left the second question blank. This means there are only two serious proposals coming from the Puerto Rican side right now, both of them unhelpful: continual bailouts, or statehood (which is a form of perpetual bailout, as will be demonstrated later).

EVALUATION OF FAILED PROPOSALS TO RESOLVE THE STATUS ISSUE

It has been proposed that Puerto Ricans should be able to choose their destiny through a self-executing referendum, but this is not sound policy. The mistake was allowing Puerto Rico to even consider the possibility of statehood as a status option on the four referenda taken in 1967, 1993, 1998, and 2012. Each subsequent referendum showed progressively increased support for statehood, but it was not until 2012 that it finally got a majority. At least the last three presidential administrations have tried to respect international law principles of self-determination by initiating a path to a self-executing referendum on Puerto Rico’s status, but that would be skirting US constitutional law. Puerto Rico’s status is ultimately left up to the US Congress according to Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution, which supersedes any form of international law. Admitting Puerto Rico as a state would require the permission of the Puerto Rican legislature—not the voters—in addition to Congressional approval. A binding referendum is inadvisable, but if it is to be done, it must be only one question with only two choices: either giving the US total authority over local governance in Puerto Rico, or independence with no caveats.   

The federal government and the Puerto Rican people have been flirting with statehood for many years, but it seems both sides focus only on the benefits of such an arrangement without considering the drawbacks. Puerto Ricans would have to completely submit to the repugnant policies from Washington and pay federal income taxes. Neither side is going to be happy about the language issue: Either Puerto Ricans will need to learn English, or the entire nation will have to recognize Spanish as an official language of government.[21] (Consider what this would mean for Puerto Rican representatives in Congress.) In addition to the language barrier, Puerto Rico is virtually guaranteed to elect several liberal Democrat US Representatives and add two US Senators of undoubtedly the same political leanings. Puerto Rican statehood would mean fundamentally altering American institutions such as the flag, the national anthem, and symmetrical Senatorial representation. It would also mean adding another deeply liberal state in massive financial trouble to a nation already buckling under a crushing public debt crisis.

             The Government Accountability Office issued a report in 2014 that estimated federal spending on Puerto Rico would have been higher if it had been a state, and in some cases the increase would be monumental; according to the GAO, the 24 million dollars the federal government contributed to the disability fund in 2011 would have been up to 7,400% more if Puerto Rico was a state.[22] Since residents of Puerto Rico do not pay federal income taxes, it would seem logical that they would not be eligible for federal benefits, but there are multitudes of social safety net programs in Puerto Rico equivalent to Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), SSI (disability), and these receive a sizable federal contribution from taxpayers in the US. Not only that, but Puerto Rico is far more dependent on government welfare than any state of the Union is. A third of the island’s residents are on food stamps and the rate of Puerto Ricans receiving disability income is twice as high as that of the US. With an unemployment rate still over 12 percent—about 2.5 times higher than the US rate—and a dismal Labor Force Participation rate that hovers in the 40% range, Puerto Rico’s economy more closely resembles what one might expect to find in a developing country, not the United States. The likelihood of Puerto Rico’s taxpayer base being able to pull its own weight in federal benefits is very low.

RECONCILING CONSTITUTIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

The conflict with constitutional and international law is what made the current commonwealth status untenable in the first place, and the debt crisis is nothing more than the logical conclusion of what was guaranteed to be a flawed political arrangement from the very start. The unnatural relationship between the US and Puerto Rico is out of step with normative international law and it is not clear that the US Constitution even allows such a relationship to continue indefinitely.[23] It has also been argued that since the UN Charter is a treaty agreed upon by the US and therefore has the force of the US Constitution, the federal government has a responsibility to continually pursue self-government for Puerto Rico according to Article 73 of the UN Charter.[24] It appears that Puerto Rico retains the right under international law to declare itself unconditionally independent,[25] but no matter how strongly the people of Puerto Rico want to join the Union, they would still need to obtain Congressional approval. Puerto Rico’s right to self-determination under international law does not extend so far as to mean that Puerto Rico can determine itself to be a state of the Union. Statehood naturally has strong support, as leftist politicians in the US are salivating over adding another reliable Democrat voter base that is heavily dependent on government benefits; and a considerable part of Puerto Rico’s leadership and citizenry mistakenly believe statehood is a panacea that will make all of their fiscal troubles disappear. Some statehood activists are even thinking of attempting to emulate the “Tennessee Plan”: pretending to be a state by electing two “US Senators”—even though they are obviously not legitimate—and then daring the federal government to refuse giving them seats in the Senate.[26] This ploy made Tennessee a state, and the threat that it could do the same for Puerto Rico is real.    

The US cannot continue to keep bailing out Puerto Rico, and making it a state would only make the bailouts bigger. At the other extreme, clearing out Puerto Rico’s dysfunctional but democratic government and reinstating a US puppet regime to carry out the needed austerity measures would outrage Puerto Ricans and the international community. The US government is hardly less dysfunctional right now than Puerto Rico’s, anyway, and it is mystifying that the two are wooing each other so thoughtlessly.

POLICY PROPOSAL

The only viable solution for both sides is for Puerto Rico to be let loose, which does not necessarily connote a total severance of the US-Puerto Rico relationship. In the current political environment in both Puerto Rico and the United States, it does not appear likely that transitioning Puerto Rico to independence will have widespread support. For more than a century, Marxism has been so thoroughly intertwined with the independence movement that the two are virtually synonymous. Hundreds of attacks have been carried out by terrorists claiming to be fighting for the liberation of Puerto Rico, namely the FALN (Army of National Liberation) and the EPB (Puerto Rican Popular Army, also known as the Macheteros). There is substantial evidence that Cuba has been deeply involved in organizing and giving direct support to terrorists in Puerto Rico.[27] The fear that an independent Puerto Rico will inevitably be ‘Cubanized’ is legitimate, thanks to decades of communist penetration by Castro’s clandestine operations.

There can be no doubt that the reluctance shown by most Puerto Rican people to entertain any idea of independence is largely a result of the unarguably destructive and outdated Marxist ideas that have been part and parcel of the independence movement since its inception. Once Puerto Ricans are forced to stop daydreaming about statehood, however, they will have to confront the reality that their problems will not be resolved under the current commonwealth arrangement. The socialist independence movement can then be supplanted by a legitimate one and the possibility of forming a successful independent government in Puerto Rico should start to seem more plausible.

The process must be gradual and predictable, with sufficient time to establish an effective representative government but not prolonged the to the point where the Puerto Rican people lose a sense of urgency. Once established, the new government can maintain its closeness with the US with an Article II treaty,[28] or join other international trade and security agreements if it wishes to. No matter what, the US government must respect the new nation’s sovereignty, even if it turns away from the United States.

Certain reasonable stipulations can be made, of course. The US government can establish accommodative rules for citizenship so that no Puerto Rican alive at the time of independence will have to choose allegiance to either the US or the new nation. Some privileges—such as travel within the states or the resolution of legal cases already begun—may have to be grandfathered to Puerto Ricans for a while, but the new Puerto Rican government will get to decide on how it wants to handle relations with the Puerto Rican diaspora in the US and non-Puerto Rican US citizens. One stipulation must be made clear from the start: Any disruption of republican government (such as if elections are suspended or martial law is imposed) in an independent Puerto Rico is grounds for the US government to re-assert its authority and remove the repressive government; the Monroe Doctrine may also be applicable here. This caveat is necessary to prevent the embarrassment of Puerto Rico being overtaken by a dictatorship or a foreign country, which are probable outcomes without this protection. Finally, the model for the transition should be Hong Kong, which was taken off the UN’s list of non-self-governing territories in 1972 due to a change in status and was ultimately relinquished to China, but it maintained much of its autonomy and prosperity throughout every stage. Puerto Rico will be vulnerable without the United States, but it should eventually become a stable Caribbean nation. The US will still have to be involved until the training wheels are ready to come off, and the currency arrangement might need to be severed in order to protect the dollar, but if the process is well-managed the prospects are good for future friendly, prosperous, and mutually-beneficial relations between the US and Puerto Rico.

Bibliography

“A Tennessee Plan for Puerto Rico?.” PR51st.com, [n.d.]. Accessed December 17, 2015: http://www.pr51st.com/a-tennessee-plan-for-puerto-rico/.

Colón-Ríos, Joel & Martín Hevia. “The Legal Status of Puerto Rico and the Institutional Requirements of Republicanism.” Texas Hispanic Journal of Law & Policy 17, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 1-25.

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Hudson, R. A. "Castro's America Department: Systemizing Insurgencies in Latin America." Terrorism 9, no. 2 (February 1987): 125-167.

Lawson, Gary & Robert D. Sloane. "The Constitutionality of Decolonization by Associated Statehood: Puerto Rico’s Legal Status Reconsidered." Boston College Law Review 50, no. 4 (September 2009): 1123-1193.

Meléndez, Edgardo. "Citizenship and the Alien Exclusion in the Insular Cases: Puerto Ricans in the Periphery of American Empire." Centro Journal 25, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 106-145.

Orellana, Manuel Rodríquez. "Puerto Rico and the U.S Congress: The Road Ahead." Texas Hispanic Journal of Law & Policy 21, (Spring 2015): 31-61.

Pastor, Robert. “The International Debate on Puerto Rico: The Costs of Being an Agenda-Taker.” International Organization 38, no. 3 (Summer 1984): 575-595.

Rezvani, David A. "The Basis of Puerto Rico's Constitutional Status: Colony, Compact, or ‘Federacy’?." Political Science Quarterly (Academy Of Political Science) 122, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 115-140.

Rubinstein, Alvin Z. "The Case against Puerto Rican Statehood." Orbis 45, no. 3 (Summer 2001): 415.

Saad, Lydia. “Americans Divided Over Status of Puerto Rico.” Gallup.com, March 13, 1998. Accessed December 17, 2015: http://www.gallup.com/poll/4243/Americans-Divided-Over-Status-Puerto-Rico.aspx.

Susler, Jan. "National Lawyers Guild International Committee Presentation to the United Nations Decolonization Committee Hearings on Puerto Rico, June 20, 2011." National Lawyers Guild Review 68, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 32-41.

U.S. Government Accountability Office. “Puerto Rico: Information on How Statehood Would Potentially Affect Selected Federal Programs and Revenue Sources.” GAO.gov, March 4, 2014. Accessed December 7, 2015: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-31.

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[1] Luis Fortuño, “Luis Fortuño: Doing What is Right for Puerto Rico and the Nation,” Latino.FOXnews.com, February 20, 2013. Accessed December 15, 2015:  http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/opinion/2013/02/20/luis-fortuno-doing-what-is-right-for-puerto-rico-and-nation/.

[2] Gary Lawson & Robert D. Sloane, "The Constitutionality of Decolonization by Associated Statehood: Puerto Rico’s Legal Status Reconsidered," Boston College Law Review 50, no. 4 (September 2009), 1125-1126.

[3] Edgardo Meléndez, "Citizenship and the Alien Exclusion in the Insular Cases: Puerto Ricans in the Periphery of American Empire," Centro Journal 25, no. 1 (Spring 2013), 134.

[4] Jacqueline N. Font-Guzmán, "Confronting a Colonial Legacy: Asserting Puerto Rican Identity by Legally Renouncing U.S. Citizenship," Centro Journal 25, no. 1 (Spring 2013), 23.

[5] Ibid., 22.

[6] Andrew E. Gerow, "Shooting for the Stars (and Stripes): How Decades of Failed Corporate Tax Policy Contributed to Puerto Rico's Historic Vote in Favor of Statehood," Tulane Law Review 88, no. 3 (February 2014), 627-628.

[7] David A. Rezvani, "The Basis of Puerto Rico's Constitutional Status: Colony, Compact, or ‘Federacy’?," Political Science Quarterly (Academy Of Political Science) 122, no. 1 (Spring 2007), 118-119.

[8] Manuel Rodríquez Orellana, "Puerto Rico and the U.S Congress: The Road Ahead," Texas Hispanic Journal of Law & Policy 21, (Spring 2015), 31.

[9] Gerow, “Shooting for the Stars,” 637.

[10] Rezvani, “The Basis of Puerto Rico's Constitutional Status,” 121.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Lawson & Sloane, “The Constitutionality of Decolonization,” 1126.

[14] Joel Colón-Ríos & Martín Hevia, “The Legal Status of Puerto Rico and the Institutional Requirements of Republicanism,” Texas Hispanic Journal of Law & Policy 17, no. 1 (Spring 2011), 25.

[15] Orellana, “Puerto Rico and the U.S Congress,” 33.

[16] Jan Susler, "National Lawyers Guild International Committee Presentation to the United Nations Decolonization Committee Hearings on Puerto Rico, June 20, 2011," National Lawyers Guild Review 68, no. 1 (Spring 2011), 33.

[17] Angelo Falcón, "The Diaspora Factor: Stateside Boricuas and the Future of Puerto Rico," NACLA Report on the Americas 40, no. 6 (November 2007), 28-29.

[18] Robert Pastor, “The International Debate on Puerto Rico: The Costs of Being an Agenda-taker,” International Organization 38, no. 3 (Summer 1984), 576.

[19] Lydia Saad, “Americans Divided Over Status of Puerto Rico,” Gallup.com, March 13, 1998. Accessed December 17, 2015: http://www.gallup.com/poll/4243/Americans-Divided-Over-Status-Puerto-Rico.aspx.

[20] Alvin Z.  Rubinstein, "The Case against Puerto Rican Statehood," Orbis 45, no. 3 (Summer 2001), 415.

[21] Ibid.

[22] U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Puerto Rico: Information on How Statehood Would Potentially Affect Selected Federal Programs and Revenue Sources,” GAO.gov, March 4, 2014. Accessed December 7, 2015: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-31.

[23] Lawson & Sloane, “The Constitutionality of Decolonization,” 1123.

[24] Ibid., 1125-1126.

[25] Ibid., 1192.

[26] “A Tennessee Plan for Puerto Rico?,” PR51st.com, [n.d.]. Accessed December 17, 2015: http://www.pr51st.com/a-tennessee-plan-for-puerto-rico/.

[27] R. A. Hudson, "Castro's America Department: Systemizing Insurgencies in Latin America," Terrorism 9, no. 2 (February 1987), 125.

[28] Lawson & Sloane, “The Constitutionality of Decolonization,” 1192-1193.