The only relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico is historical oddity. They don’t need to be a state any more than Panama does because we invaded them.
Cut them loose and say goodbye.
We all know the only reason this is a thing is because Democrats want two more guaranteed Senators.
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I don’t see how it could be solved. Because if it was a choice between “US citizenship with relocation” and “PR Citizenship and remain on the island” I suspect at least 2/3rds of the people would choose to keep their US citizenship and relocate to the mainland or another US territory. I wouldn’t blame them; the PR generally sucks.
Which destroys any chance of PR making it as an independent country since the people that would certainly leave would include their best and brightest.
But the idea of just stripping their US citizenship from them sounds horrifying, sets a dangerous precedent, and would probably cause internal mainland problems in regards to the 2 to 3 million Puerto Ricans who already live on the mainland. Not only that but I’m pretty sure that would be unconstitutional in some kind of way.
I just don’t see anyway to do it that is fair to the current population of Puerto Rico.
Much more than that in regards to Puerto Rico.
We can’t completely abandon them. They aren’t Panama. We never “owned” Panama. We do own Puerto Rico.
We should get out now.
The status quo needs to change.
But I don’t feel comfortable just cutting them loose and telling them “good luck.” We played a role in why they turned out like they did.
But I also don’t support the idea of just granting them statehood without reforms and the island proving that it can stand as a state at least to the level of MS or AR.
It’s a rock and a hard place situation for me.
FYI…
Guam and the US Virgin Islands also are Jus Soli citizens.
WW
Why not just a dual citizenship type of thing?
Wait for real? Guam?
I did not know that. I thought it was only PR.
So the Samoans are the only ones getting screwed in that department?
Well damn. I need to rethink some things.
Fine. Give them a ton of money, instead of giving it to South Africa to close coal plants, and then say goodbye.
And it’s not like the Caribbean was full of wealthy, advanced nations and the only reason Puerto Rico isn’t wealthy and advanced like them is because we took them over from Spain. It’s just not.
I guess that could be done for the current generation of Puerto Ricans, with future children being born as PR citizens only.
I wouldn’t have known either except I spent 6-years and both my kids were born there.
(Although they were jus sanguinis even if jus soli hadn’t applied.)
WW
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No one ever said that.
Spain ran its empire into the ground. They would have been in even worse conditions under Spanish rule had the Spanish Empire survived until now.
My point is that we have had them for so long that it seems like an injustice to just drop them like a crappy ex-girlfriend. There would need to be an organized transition.
But I don’t think PR statehood is the right course for the United States considering we would need to essentially rebuild it from scratch. It would be an insane expense to get the island up to the level of the poorest states in the Union. Because as of now they don’t have much of a self propagating economy. Which is the fault of both the United States and Puerto Rico.
Sure someone said that…in this thread.
As far as citizenship, there is a precedence in the Chamizal area along the border of Texas and Mexico. A shift in the Rio Grande caused part of an area that had been Mexico to be taken as part of the US. In 1964, LBJ returned this area to Mexico. The people who lived there had US citizenship. They were given the option to stay in Chamizal in which case they would be Mexican citizens or move to the US in which case they could keep their citizenship.
State. They can’t feed themselves. They need my money.
Their problems are self-inflicted. Not because it was a territory for decades!
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All.
…
Good Lord
Alliances and empires are two separate thangs.
Unfortunately they keep it. Grandfathered.
