Puerto Rico has been a possession of the United States since 1898 — that’s more than a century and a quarter. Puerto Rico is not the only territory of the United States, but it is the only one with a large enough population to be a state and the only one that has voted for statehood. Yet Puerto Rico is not a state.
England and other nations gave up their colonies at the end of World War II. So why is Puerto Rico still a U.S. possession?
No U.S. territory that has asked for statehood has been refused. It has sometimes taken years for Congress to accept territories’ requests, but 32 territories have become states before. Each state has a different story, but all of those territories are now states. Congress has not admitted Puerto Rico, but Congress has also never voted against making Puerto Rico a state, as they did with some of the current states before they were admitted.
The catch-22 is that Members of Congress follow their constituent interests, and even though twice an many Puerto Rican live stateside today as in Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans do not constitute a majority in any Congressional district. Members of Congress often don’t focus on Puerto Rico’s status because their constituencies don’t care enough. Perhaps their constituents are just putting food on the table. Perhaps they find other compelling foreign or domestic issues to advance.
In Puerto Rico, voters chose statehood on plebiscite ballots in 2012, 2017, 2020, and 2024. Each of these votes showed a majority in favor of statehood, which is the only completely reliable way to safeguard U.S. citizenship. U.S. citizenship matters to the people of Puerto Rico. In 2011, a White House special task force concluded that “[a]ny status option that could conceivably result in the loss of U.S. citizenship by current U.S. citizen residents of Puerto Rico would, it seems, be viewed with hostility by the vast majority of Puerto Ricans.”
The allure of the “Commonwealth”
In the 1950’s, in the midst of the Cold War and Russian accusations of American Imperialism, the U.S. petitioned the United Nations to remove Puerto Rico from its official list of colonies. The U.S. explained that since Puerto Rico was self governing locally, it was no longer controlled by the U.S. government. This wasn’t quite true. Although Puerto Rico did not have the level of direct congressional oversight that characterizes the arrangement with Washington, D.C., under which Congress has the authority to review all local laws passed by the D.C. Council and over the city’s local budget and spending, the U.S. government still made – and makes – laws that the people of Puerto Rico must follow, even though they don’t have a vote on passage of these laws. Puerto Rico’s lack of power is even more apparent since 2016, when, in the midst of Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy, Congress appointed a Federal Oversight and Management Board to oversee the territory’s finances.
In the 1950’s, the U.S. claimed that Puerto Rico had become a “commonwealth,” and was no longer a colony. Over time, this fallacy was exposed for what it is – just another label for Puerto Rico’s territorial status. From this realization grew an “enhanced commonwealth” contingency, which is now decreasing in number, but continues to claim that the United States will eventually agree to some hybrid nation-state plan which will give Puerto Rico “the best of both worlds.”
The federal government, under both major national political parties, has repeatedly stated that the U.S. will never agree to core elements of this plan. Under the U.S. constitution, territory and state are the only legal options. So Puerto Rico has remained a territory, and the allure of being a “commonwealth” creates a sense of complacency, both in Puerto Rico and the states. If there is no recognition of Puerto Rico’s colonial status, there is no incentive to change it.
The Evolution of the “Commonwealth” Label During the Cold War
The lessons of history
A century ago, the United States was in the business of adding states. Territories and their future prospects were in the news and often were major issues in presidential campaigns. Now, many Americans are confused about U.S. territories. Congress has been able to ignore Puerto Rico because their constituents were often blissfully unaware of the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States.
What’s more, a series of Supreme Court decisions called the Insular Cases made it legal for Congress to keep a territory indefinitely. Puerto Rico was never given a clear path to statehood as the older territories were.
Distractions
Puerto Rico’s status as an unincorporated territory is a driving force behind the economic crisis that has plagued the Island. The weakness of the infrastructure, which made disaster response extremely difficult, is generally not the case in states.
Yet many commenters have said that Puerto Rico has to sort out its finances before becoming a state, that the territory’s debt must be paid back before Puerto Rico can be a state, or that Hurricane Maria’s cleanup must be completed before statehood can be considered.
Conditions like these have never been placed on territories in the past. It was understood that statehood could instead help provide solutions to oversight and budgeting problems facing territories, and that adding a state would make the country stronger – and, at a minimum, certainly more honest.
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