Camilo Rivera Vacirca (Columbia Law School) has posted Recognizing United States Citizenship Rights for Puerto Ricans in an Independence Scenario on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Puerto Rico continues today as the largest and oldest colony from the European Age of Discovery. Since the European discovery of the Caribbean and the New World, Puerto Rico has remained a colony, its inhabitants never being given sovereignty from their colonial holders. Today, the debate on the status of Puerto Rico is as controversial as ever. The key sticking point is whether or not Puerto Ricans will retain United States Citizenship should Congress decide to dispose of their territorial holding. In harsher language, will the United States, en masse, expatriate millions of United States citizens, and can they? This note examines the legal history on the status of the inhabitants in Puerto Rico. First, as people under control of the United States but without citizenship, second as statutory United States citizens, and finally as birthright United States citizens, thus extending the 14th Amendment to the inhabitants of Puerto Rico. Using legislative history, this note shows that Puerto Ricans have a right to remain citizens of the United States in an independence scenario. This note further examines and explains how previous scholars seemingly ignore 14th Amendment arguments on an idea that Puerto Ricans only hold statutory citizenship in the United States.