# Could Congress unilaterally change Puerto Rico's status? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 30, 2025, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595 "2025-01-30T00:07:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/22 "2025-01-30T21:28:03Z")
> [@On another topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1014334/24): > > I’m not sure if there are historical examples of a country just getting rid of territory because they just don’t want it anymore. There is a very famous one - Singapore. Between 1963 (year of the independence of Malaysia from the British Empire) and 1965, Singapore was part of Malaysia. Then, in the wake of strong tensions between the (mostly Chinese) inhabitants of Singapore and the (mostly non-Chinese) inhabitants of the rest of Malaysia, the Malaysian government basically kicked Singapore out of the country. Lee Kwan Yew (who was prime minister of Singapore continuously from the very beginning of the country until 1990, and was chief minister of Singapore at the time when Malaysia kicked it out) famously gave a televised speech wherein he was close to tears, explaining that Malaysia had expelled Singapore from the federation. Malaysia expected Singapore to basically wither and die after that. Of course, now they are the ones kicking themselves for getting rid of Singapore after seeing how the place (which is in an absolutely prime strategic location for world trade) ended up becoming prosperous as fuck. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/23 "2025-01-30T21:51:06Z")
No, as @zimaane said above, the child of a US citizen born abroad does not automatically gain US citizenship at birth unless the parent lived at least five years in the United States. If Puerto Rico becomes an independent nation, within a few years there will be many US citizens there who never lived in the US at all. Their children will not be US citizens. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/24 "2025-01-30T22:06:24Z")
Missed that point. That might increase the number of Puerto Ricans moving to the states in 5 years. For various reasons there’s been a lot of Samoans moving to the states also because they need minimum residency in some cases for citizenship. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/25 "2025-01-30T22:37:27Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > It’s not true under current law. To transmit citizenship to someone born abroad, a U.S. Citizen must have resided in the United States for a certain number of years (five, I think). This was an issue in the “Birther” movement. Obama was born in Hawai’i, but their argument was that a) He was born in Kenya and b) His mother, being only 19 at the time he was born, had not lived in the US for the required 7 years after the age of 14. I think the law has been changed in the meantime, so 5 years may be correct. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/26 "2025-01-30T22:59:15Z")
One grey area is that US citizenship for Puerto Ricans (at least those born in Puerto Rico) is based on the Jones Act, not the 14th Amendment. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/27 "2025-01-30T23:27:23Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > No, as @zimaane said above, the child of a US citizen born abroad does not automatically gain US citizenship at birth unless the parent lived at least five years in the United States. If Puerto Rico becomes an independent nation, within a few years there will be many US citizens there who never lived in the US at all. Their children will not be US citizens. That’s not clear. They would have lived in Puerto Rico for five years during which it was some kind of part of the US, right? No children less than 5 or those born after such dissolution, would not have lived in the US for five years so their children would not be citizens I’d think. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2025, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/28 "2025-02-01T12:41:51Z")
And after several smendments a d corrections and expansions the current statute that applies to most of us under age 84 living today is 8 USC 1402: [https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1402&num=0&edition=prelim](https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1402&num=0&edition=prelim) > [@](#): > > All persons born in Puerto Rico on or after April 11, 1899, and prior to January 13, 1941, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, residing on January 13, 1941, in Puerto Rico or other territory over which the United States exercises rights of sovereignty and not citizens of the United States under any other Act, are declared to be citizens of the United States as of January 13, 1941. All persons born in Puerto Rico on or after January 13, 1941, and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, are citizens of the United States at birth. > [June 27, 1952, ch. 477, title III, ch. 1, §302, 66 Stat. 236] ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2025, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/29 "2025-02-01T13:56:30Z")
NellietheElephant Jan 30 > Independence is usually at the request, either peacefully or violently, of the territory or colony. I’m not sure if there are historical examples of a country just getting rid of territory because they just don’t want it anymore PJ O’Rourke wrote an account of the UK doing precisely this to the Turks and Caicos Islands, or at least telling them that they would inevitably become independent whether they wanted it or not, but according to WIKI, they are still a British Overseas Territory. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2025, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/30 "2025-02-01T16:37:06Z")
Meanwhile, Canada keeps trying to make the Turks and Caicos its own version of Puerto Rico: > **[Turks and Caicos: Canada's 11th Province?](https://www.visittci.com/nature-and-history/history/canada-proposed-union)** > > History and timeline of the various proposed unions between Canada and the Turks and Caicos Islands, including recent developments. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2025, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/31 "2025-02-01T16:43:12Z")
No. Random people talk about it, irregularly, but the federal government is not trying to do anything. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2025, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/32 "2025-02-01T16:57:43Z")
What might have to be considered is that we traditionally admit states in pairs and often one Dem and one Pub. Is Puerto Rico red? If so it might need a DC statehood scenario too in order to be admitted. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2025, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/33 "2025-02-01T17:21:56Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Is Puerto Rico red? Puerto Rico conducted a straw poll for the 2024 presidential election. Kamala Harris received 63% of the vote; Donald Trump got only 23%. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2025, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/34 "2025-02-01T17:44:31Z")
That’s part of the political obstacle. GOP figures such as Mitch McConnell have repeatedly denounced PR statehood as a socialist scheme to force DC statehood into the mix. The governor elected last november is R-affiliated in national politics as are most of the current legislative majority. But PR is “purplish-complicated” relative to the mainland states’ spectrum. See: the referenced straw poll. The hardliners in the GOP consider it too much of a risk to elect Dems (2Sens 4Reps = 6EVs as of last calculation); however, truth is PR pro-statehooders lean more right on sociocultural issues and the local pro-statehood party is currently Republican-ascendant, so the Dems get a lot of contrary pressure from the established _stateside_ PRican community organizations who are mostly left-Dem aligned. Add the unspectacular margins in actual votes (57% at best) and the hardliners in each faction in DC feel it’s someone else’s partisan trick. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2025, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/35 "2025-02-01T20:06:47Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > What might have to be considered is that we traditionally admit states in pairs and often one Dem and one Pub. Where did you get that idea? Sounds like a mistaken notion of the Missouri Compromise. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2025, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595/36 "2025-02-01T21:37:21Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > To be “admitted”, don’t you have to ask to become a state? Otherwise it would say “created”. There have been several plebiscites in PR, and some have shown popularity for being a state. That would likely be enough. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-congress-unilaterally-change-puerto-ricos-status/1013595.md?page=1)