Today Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-Arizona), the Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, and six of his House colleagues sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Acting Solicitor General Brian Fletcher calling on the Biden-Harris Department of Justice to expressly condemn the Insular Cases, a series of racist Supreme Court decisions the Justice Department has continued to rely upon when defending federal statutes that discriminate against residents of U.S. territories.

More Than a Dozen Amicus Briefs Filed in Support of Ending the Discriminatory Denial of SSI Benefits, Congress to Act on $3.5 Trillion Package that Could Include Parity for Territories

El pasado mes de junio, el presidente Biden se volvió noticia cuando le aseguró a los residentes de los territorios estadounidenses que "no puede haber ciudadanos de segunda clase en los Estados Unidos de América". Esto, irónicamente el mismo día en que su Departamento de Justicia presentó un escrito ante el Tribunal Supremo en el caso Estados Unidos contra Vaello Madero en el que se argumentaba que a los ciudadanos americanos se les puede denegar la Seguridad de Ingreso Suplementario (SSI) simplemente porque viven en Puerto Rico u otros territorios estadounidenses. Hoy, el Sr. Vaello Madero -que fue despojado de sus beneficios de SSI después de mudarse de Nueva York a Puerto Rico- presentó una respuesta contundente en la que afirma que la continuación de la denegación de los beneficios de SSI no sólo es inconstitucional, sino que representaría una peligrosa continuación de la doctrina de los Casos Insulares de un estatus "separado y desigual" para los residentes de los territorios estadounidenses. El año pasado, un panel unánime del Primer Circuito confirmó la sentencia de un tribunal de distrito que declaró inconstitucional la continuación de la denegación de las prestaciones del SSI en Puerto Rico. 

In June, President Biden made news when he promised residents of U.S. territories that “there can be no second-class citizens in the United States of America” on the same day his Department of Justice filed a brief before the Supreme Court in United States v. Vaello Madero arguing that otherwise eligible citizens can be denied Supplemental Security Income (SSI) simply because they happen to live in Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories. Today, Mr. Vaello Madero—who was stripped of his SSI benefits after moving from New York to Puerto Rico—filed a powerful response that the continuing denial of SSI benefits is not just unconstitutional, but would represent a dangerous continuation of the Insular Cases’ doctrine of “separate and unequal” status for residents of U.S. territories. Last year a unanimous panel of the First Circuit upheld a district court ruling that the continued denial of SSI benefits in Puerto Rico was unconstitutional.

After a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled in June that there is no right to citizenship for people born in U.S. territories, current and former elected officials from Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, along with a diverse array of scholars, the ACLU and the Virgin Islands Bar Association are calling for the full Tenth Circuit to rehear the case.

UPDATE: The Tenth Circuit has directed Appellants to file a response to the petition for rehearing en banc, due Monday, August 16th. 

Three Americans born on U.S. soil in American Samoa – a U.S. territory since 1900 – are seeking en banc review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit after a fractured panel reversed an historic district court decision in Fitisemanu v. United States that recognized them as U.S. citizens.