Population density, Census 2000
Puerto Rico has recently become the
permanent home of over 100,000 legal residents who immigrated from not only the
Dominican Republic,
but from other Latin American countries. These include Cuba, Colombia,
and Venezuela,
as well as surrounding Caribbean islands, Haiti, Barbados,
and the U.S. Virgin Islands among them.
Emigration is a major part of contemporary Puerto Rican history.
Starting soon after World War II, poverty, cheap airfare, and promotion by the island
government caused waves of Puerto Ricans to move to the United States,
particularly to New York, New Jersey,
Massachusetts, and Florida. This trend continued even as Puerto Rico's economy improved
and its birth rate declined, and Puerto Ricans continue to follow a pattern of
"circular migration".
International
status
On November 27, 1953, shortly after
the establishment of the Commonwealth, the General Assembly of the United Nations
approved Resolution 748, removing
Puerto Rico's classification as a non-self-governing territory under article 73(e) of the Charter from UN. But the General
Assembly did not apply the full list of criteria which was enunciated in 1960
when it took favorable note of the cessation of transmission of information
regarding the non-self-governing status of Puerto Rico.[100][101]
According to the White House Task Force on Puerto Rico's Political Status in
its December 21, 2007 report, the U.S., in its written submission to the UN in
1953, never represented that Congress could not change its relationship with
Puerto Rico without the territory's consent.[102]
It stated that the U.S. Justice Department in 1959 reiterated that Congress
held power over Puerto Rico pursuant to the Territorial Clause[103]
of the U.S. Constitution.[102]
In 1993, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh
Circuit stated that Congress may
unilaterally repeal the Puerto Rican Constitution or the Puerto Rican Federal
Relations Act and replace them with any rules or regulations of its choice.[81]
In a 1996 report on a Puerto Rico status political bill, the U.S. House Committee on Resources stated, "Puerto Rico's current status does not meet
the criteria for any of the options for full self-government under Resolution
1541" (the three established forms of full self-government being stated in
the report as (1) national independence, (2) free association based on separate
sovereignty, or (3) full integration with another nation on the basis of
equality). The report concluded that Puerto Rico "... remains an
unincorporated territory and does not have the status of 'free association'
with the United States as that status is defined under United States law or
international practice", that the establishment of local self-government
with the consent of the people can be unilaterally revoked by the U.S.
Congress, and that U.S. Congress can also withdraw the U.S. citizenship of
Puerto Rican residents of Puerto Rico at any time, for a legitimate Federal
purpose.[104][105]
The application of the U.S. Constitution to Puerto Rico is limited by the Insular Cases.
In 2006,[106]
2007,[107]
2009,[108]
2010,[109]
and 2011[110]
the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization passed resolutions calling on the United States to expedite
a process "that would allow Puerto Ricans to fully exercise their
inalienable right to self-determination and independence",[111]
and to release all Puerto Rican political prisoners in U.S. prisons, to clean
up, decontaminate and return the lands in the islands of Vieques and Culebra to
the people of Puerto Rico, to perform a probe into U.S. human rights violations
on the island and a probe into the killing by the FBI of pro-independence
leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios.
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