3 MILLION REASONS THAT MAKE TOMORROW A CRUCIAL DAY FOR THE FUTURE OF PUERTO RICO

Tomorrow’s SCOTUS oral arguments in the United States v. Vaello-Madero case may be the most important milestone in Puerto Rico’s historical fight for equality.

Nov 08, 2021

Imagine you are a retiree receiving benefits under the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program[1] living in New York. Fed up with the harsh, long winters, you decide to relocate to beautiful, sunny Puerto Rico where no snow ever falls and temperatures average 80 degrees.

You pack your bags and take off to a new peaceful life where you go to sleep to the songs of the coquís and wake up to those of the reinitas.

After a few months living in the island, the Social Security Administration knocks on your door. Its agents demand that you return part of the retirement benefits they paid to you since you relocated to the United States’ territory of Puerto Rico since Congress provided that the SSI is not available to anyone who lives for over 30 days “outside of the United States”.

When you refuse to return any of the hard-earned benefits you received, the agency sues you in federal court for collection of money. They assert that despite Puerto Ricans’ equal contributions to the Social Security Administration, Congress did not contemplate for American citizens living within the jurisdiction of Puerto Rico to receive the SSI benefits available in the mainland.

Sounds like discrimination, doesn’t it?

Tomorrow, November 9th, 2021, SCOTUS will hold oral arguments in United States v. Vaello-Madero –the case where both the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico and the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit concluded that the disparity violates the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution.

Until the tragic passage of Hurricane Maria through Puerto Rico in 2017, more than half of Americans didn’t know that since 1917[1], people born in Puerto Rico are American citizens. Unfamiliar people still occasionally refer to Puerto Ricans relocating to the mainland as “immigrants”.

Mr. Vaello-Madero is retiree that upon relocating to Puerto Rico from NY, the Social Security Administration notified him that he had to return benefits paid to him in excess of what he had a right to since residents of Puerto Rico were not entitled to receive the same benefits as those he had in the mainland. When Mr. Vaello-Madero refused to return the funds, the US sued him in federal court.

The United States Constitution’s Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment provides that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Clause prohibits the federal government from denying a person the equal protection of the laws.[1]

The Due Process and Equal Protection guarantees fully apply to the 3 million American citizens residing within the 100 x 35 miles (and the territorial waters) that comprise Puerto Rico.[2]

When the US realized that it had stepped on a land mine, it filed for a voluntary dismissal of the complaint. The courageous District Court didn’t allow it and instead held:

“Congress's decision to "disparately classify United States citizens residing in Puerto Rico" ran "counter to the very essence and fundamental guarantees of the Constitution itself."[3]

The First Circuit affirmed the District Court’s decision. Finding that “residents of Puerto Rico not only make substantial contributions to the federal treasury, but in fact have consistently made them in higher amounts than taxpayers in at least six states, as well as the territory of the Northern Mariana Islands”, the First Circuit concluded that the argument that Puerto Rico's residents do not contribute to the federal treasury is no longer available.

After observing that the discrimination contained in the statute “creates a citizenship apartheid based on historical and social ethnicity within United States soil”, the First Circuit Court held that “the Fifth Amendment does not permit the arbitrary treatment of individuals who would otherwise qualify for SSI but for their residency in Puerto Rico”.

On September 4, 2020, the United States filed a Certiorari petition before SCOTUS. On March 1st, 2021 SCOTUS granted the petition to review the case. On June 7, 2021, DOJ submitted its brief in support of the United States’ petition to review and vacate the First Circuit Court of Appeal’s opinion.

The question presented to the Court reads as follows:

Whether Congress violated the equal-protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment by establishing Supplemental Security Income—a program that provides benefits to needy aged, blind, and disabled individuals—in the 50 States and the District of Columbia, but not extending it to Puerto Rico.

On the same date that the United States Department of Justice filed its brief before SCOTUS asking the High Court to vacate the First Circuit’s decision, President Biden issued a press release announced that, as a matter of policy, the Administration supports extending SSI benefits to Puerto Rico residents.[1]

Whut…?

The lives of three million American citizens residing in Puerto Rico hinge on the arguments that SCOTUS’ will hear tomorrow.

Beyond eradicating statutory discrimination based on origin, Vaello-Madero gives SCOTUS the opportunity to make a categorical statement precluding any form of discrimination by any branch of government against Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico’s environment desperately needs it…

[1] Press Release, U.S. President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Statement by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. on Puerto Rico (June 7, 2021).

[1] See Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 499 (1954).

[2] See Examining Board of Engineers, Architects & Surveyors v. Flores de Otero, 426 U.S. 572, 599-601 (1976).

[3] Vaello-Madero, 356 F. Supp. 3d at 213.

[1] Jones Act of 1917, 39 Stat. 953, § 5 (1917) and 8 U.S.C. § 1402.

[1] Supplemental Security Income (SSI) provisions of Title XVI of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1381-1383(f).

Mira!

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