Puerto Rico has become a colonial ghetto. Time to make it the 51st state. Longest-held territory in U.S. history remains a blemish in the American credo of democracy.

Pedro Rossello | Opinion contributor

Show Caption Hide Caption Puerto Rico should be the next state to join the Union Former governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Rossello, comments on the effort seeking to request statehood for the island.

Following back-to-back destruction by two of the most powerful hurricanes in recent history, Puerto Rico has been dramatically present in national news. One prominent element of the coverage has been the recognition that Puerto Ricans are natural-born U.S. citizens. Another salient aspect of mainstream news media communications has been the delayed, inadequate and ultimately unfair treatment afforded these citizens at this tragic hour — solely based on where they live.

In the years after the U.S. acquired Puerto Rico from Spain in 1898, following an invasion of U.S. troops during the Spanish-American War, the political conditions and the civil rights of residents have been defined by a series of federal Supreme Court decisions, known as the Insular Cases, legalizing their unequal treatment.

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The most notable of the six decisions came in 1901, stating that while in an international sense Puerto Rico was not a foreign country — since it was subject to the sovereignty of and was owned by the United States — it was considered foreign to the U.S. itself.

And the case in 1922, which determined Puerto Rico to be a jurisdiction in which no U.S. citizen could lay claim to all the protections afforded by the Constitution. Regardless of where they may have been born, it held that U.S. citizens automatically lost certain fundamental rights if they opted to live in Puerto Rico.

Notwithstanding this legal construct, Congress granted U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans in 1917. Under federal statute, Puerto Ricans became and are now natural-born U.S. citizens, but with a caveat: Citizenship comes with limited rights compared with those of other U.S. citizens. Among those: The right to vote in national elections, the right to have voting representation in Congress, the right to participate equally in federal health programs such as Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program and others as long as they, or any other Americans, live on the island. The law established a colonial ghetto.

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In the mid-20th century, the United Nations adopted a resolution to grant independence to colonial countries and peoples. But by then, the Puerto Rico and U.S. governments had already colluded to remove Puerto Rico from the U.S. list of non-autonomous governments, thus pretending that colonialism on the island had been eradicated.

Today, this longest-held territory in U.S. history remains a blemish in the American credo of democracy.

Status limbo permeates every aspect of life in the island

This civil limbo engenders an egregious and unfair social and economic treatment of American citizens. This inequality includes discriminatory considerations under many federal laws in such fundamental areas as education, health care, infrastructure and economic development. The recently adopted federal tax reform is a dramatic reaffirmation of how this unequal, discriminatory policy seriously hampers the possibilities of economic recovery, following more than a decade of depression.

One of the defining elements in a ghetto is the community’s lack of power. Poverty, in its broad meaning, cannot be merely conceived as a low-income level but rather as a state of powerlessness. After nearly 12 decades of unequal treatment under the aegis of the U.S. Congress, it is time for this last remnant of U.S. imperial rule to be banished to the annals of history.

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The people of Puerto Rico have clearly opted for statehood twice in the past five years in open, free and fair plebiscites.

The federal government must acknowledge its responsibility in this shameful situation and proceed to redress more than a century of unequal treatment of the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico. It is time for the U.S. to return to its traditional values as a republic, and renounce its obsolete colonial doctrine by admitting the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico as equal participants with the rest of their fellow citizens in all the states.

As former U.S. attorney general Richard Thornburgh asserts: “Puerto Rico is the last American territory meeting historical criteria for admission to statehood.”

Dr. Pedro Rosselló is a two-term former governor of Puerto Rico (1993-2001). He serves as chairman of the Puerto Rico Shadow Congressional Delegation. He holds a master's in public health, a doctorate in medicine and a doctorate in education. He is also the father of the current governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló.