In November 2020, the majority of Puerto Ricans (53 percent) voted in support of statehood for the island. Congress should pay attention to the aspirations of the people of Puerto Rico and immediately put the island on a path toward becoming a U.S. state.
The reality is that despite being U.S. citizens since 1917, the people of Puerto Rico don’t have the full rights that other citizens are guaranteed under the Constitution. The U.S. Congress governs the territory’s citizens in federal matters and, even on internal affairs, it can limit and overrule the local government and laws.
Furthermore, Puerto Ricans have no voting representation in a Congress that passes laws that apply to them. (They do have a nonvoting delegate in Congress.) They’re also denied the right to vote for the president, who has the authority to send their children to war. In fact, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans have fought in the nation’s wars since World War I, defending freedoms that they can’t themselves fully enjoy because of where they live.