In a letter signed by 47 members of renowned universities in the United States, the academics condemned the Puerto Rico status project proposed by Congressman Nydia Velázquez, which plans to hold a constitutional status meeting.
The letter was sent today to Federal House Speaker Nancy Pelosy; Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer; and Republican leaders Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell.
Instead, they showed their “strong support” for the legislative project presented by Residential Commissioner Jenniffer González and Congressman of Puerto Rican descent, Darren Soto, in which they seek to endorse last November’s result, in which the state reached 52.5%. of the votes.
“Like all Americans, we support self-determination. But unlike proponents of the Self-Determination Act, we believe that true self-determination requires the United States to provide Puerto Ricans with a real choice. By ‘real’ we mean constitutional, not territorial.” Puerto Rico’s options for self-determination must be constitutional, for the obvious reason that neither Congress nor Puerto Rico has the power to implement an unconstitutional option, and they must be non-territorial, because the territorial option no self-determination. ”Read the letter.
The document is signed by professors from Yale, Kent State, Columbia, Duke, Berkeley, Washington State, Cornell, Princeton, NYU, Harvard, and more.
“There are two, and only two, real options for self-determination for Puerto Rico: sovereignty or independence. (…) For decades, the defenders of the“ ELA ”argued that it was not territorial. The Commonwealth ceased to exist in 1952. an American territory, became a separate sovereign and signed a mutually binding pact with the United States. But they were wrong. Congress simply does not have the power to establish a permanent union between Puerto Rico and the United States, except by admitting Puerto Rico as a state, ”they continued.
The academics stressed that divisions among Puerto Ricans have “always” concluded that they reject the current territorial status but want to remain US citizens.
In addition, they point out that the project proposed by the resident commissioner “respects the outcome of the referendum, responds with concrete actions and ensures that Puerto Ricans have the first and last word on their future”.
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