Puerto Rico

After the Natural Resources Committee passed the Puerto Rico Status Act on Wednesday, all eyes are now on Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, whose support or defection from the bill she helped negotiate will likely decide the bill’s fate in the House.

Twenty-nine amendments were debated by members of the House Natural Resources Committee who ultimately voted 20-25 to advance the bill, with every Republican voting against the bill except Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner, Jenniffer González-Colón.

On Friday, Natural Resources Committee chair Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) introduced a bill that outlines a process for the people of Puerto Rico to decide their political status in a binding resolution that would force Congress to carry out their decision.

Chief Justice Maite Oronoz Rodríguez has been vocal about her solidarity with gender-based violence victims and their families, but she faces the challenge of bringing the judicial branch closer to survivors of violence and addressing demands for transparency and accountability.

If U.S. territories like Puerto Rico were granted either statehood or independence, 46 percent of likely voters in the United States would support a one-time debt cancellation by the federal government to compensate the residents of those territories for the century-long impact of second-class citizenship, according to a poll conducted by IZQ Strategies.

Americans who believe their democracy is under threat should speak clearly and honestly to the people of Puerto Rico about the state of the union and reflect on whether they can in good conscience urge Puerto Ricans to join it.

On Monday, after more than a year of protesting and occupying the beach, environmental justice activists destroyed parts of the illegal construction that Sol y Playa Condominium was building on Los Almendros beach in Rincón, Puerto Rico.

Free Association is the only road available for Puerto Rico at this moment to foster its prosperity while establishing a non-territorial relationship with the United States. It is also the only status option capable of accommodating the main concerns expressed by the advocates of the three traditional status options.

Last week Thursday, a coalition of Puerto Ricans living in the diaspora sent a letter to Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, urging him and other House members for transparency in their proceedings on a draft bill to resolve Puerto Rico’s status.

What do gentrification and a shootout in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood in June 1973 have to do with the struggle for Puerto Rican independence?

Latino Rebels reached out to Peter R. Rosenblatt, who from 1977 to 1981 served as President Carter’s ambassador to the negotiations on the future political status of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, which established the Compact of Free Association between the U.S. government and the former UN-controlled, U.S.-administered territories of Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia.

Four judges have ordered the handing over to the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI, in Spanish) of the annual reports submitted by the beneficiaries of the Act to Promote the Relocation of Investors to Puerto Rico, or Act 22, which is now part of the Incentives Code.

The New York City Department of Health carried out a 2020 survey analyzing overdose deaths among Latinos, and Puerto Ricans represented the highest number of opioid deaths by a landslide. Out of 635 reported fatal overdoses, 232 were Puerto Ricans.

Fearing that one of the two other status options may win, specifically the “Free Association” option, members of the Puerto Rican statehood movement plan to pressure House Natural Resources Committee chair Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) to revise the language of a draft bill that looks to resolve Puerto Rico’s 100-plus status issue once and for all, according to a draft letter provided to Latino Rebels by an anonymous source directly familiar with the proceedings.

On Monday afternoon, the United Nations (UN) Special Committee on Decolonization —by consensus and for the 40th time— adopted Draft Resolution L7, which formally recognizes Puerto Rico’s right to self-determination and independence.

In the end, the congressional visit was Boricua political theater at its best, with a showy guest list.

On Tuesday afternoon, Latino Rebels caught up with the House Committee on Natural Resources Chair in the Speaker’s Lobby of the House of Representatives for an update on the bill that has brought the two policy factions supporting statehood and self-determination bills together for the first time.

While movement this week from the House Committee on Natural Resources is likely focusing on a consensus Puerto Rico Status Act for a hearing before the August recess that could get the draft bill past committee and onto the House floor, Illinois’ two Senators have added their name to a growing list of upper chamber co-sponsors of a current self-determination bill that contains no consensus provisions with the island-colony’s statehood proponents.

Latino Rebels Radio: June 9, 2022

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A discussion is brewing in the House of Representatives over whether or not the new Puerto Rico Status Discussion Draft will be translated into Spanish.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Days after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) traveled to Puerto Rico with three fellow House members to hold a public forum to discuss the new Puerto Rico Status Act Discussion Draft, Latino Rebels caught up with the New York Democrat on Wednesday evening for an update on the bill.