A national coalition consisting of leading civil rights organizations, members of Congress, former acting U.S. solicitor general Neal Katyal, individuals harmed by U.S. colonialism, and other advocates joined a recent virtual press conference to call on the Biden-Harris administration to condemn rather than continue embracing the Supreme Court\u2019s racist\u00a0Insular Cases, a series of controversial decisions that established a colonial framework for the 3.6 million residents of U.S. territories.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Biden-Harris Administration has until\u00a0Friday, July 29, to decide whether to join or oppose calls to overrule the\u00a0Insular Cases, when it must respond to a Supreme Court petition in\u00a0Fitisemanu v. United State\u2014a case about birthright citizenship in U.S. territories which asks, in part, \u201cwhether the Insular Cases should be overruled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advocates continue to call on Biden-Harris administration to reject\u00a0Insular Cases<\/strong><\/p>\n July 12\u2019s press conference was co-sponsored by Equally American, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, and American Civil Liberties Union. LatinoJustice, ACLU, and other leading civil rights organizations\u00a0wrote\u00a0the U.S. Justice Department earlier this year calling on it to condemn the\u00a0Insular Cases. They also recently\u00a0filed\u00a0an amicus brief in\u00a0Fitisemanu,\u00a0calling on the Supreme Court to take up the petition to finally overrule the\u00a0Insular Cases.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Biden-Harris Justice Department has not just cited the\u00a0Insular Cases, but actually cited the most racist parts of these decisions, to argue that those born in U.S. territories\u2014overwhelmingly people of color\u2014have no constitutional right to citizenship. It is time the Justice Department join rather than oppose the calls of those who seek to turn the page on the\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0and the colonial legacy they created,\u201d said\u00a0Neil Weare, president and founder of Equally American, co-counsel for plaintiffs in\u00a0Fitisemanu. The\u00a0Fitisemanu\u00a0petitioners are also represented by Gibson Dunn and American Samoan attorney Charles Ala\u2019ilima.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Insular Cases were decided by largely the same court as\u00a0Plessy v. Ferguson\u2014the case that justified racial segregation in the United States. They are grounded in the same discredited notions of white supremacy, yet unlike\u00a0Plessy, the Insular Cases\u00a0have yet to be overruled. Although the Insular Cases rest on archaic, offensive, and explicitly racist reasoning, the U.S. government still relies on them to enforce the colonial status quo,\u201d said\u00a0Lourdes M. Rosado, president and general counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, President Biden addressed discrimination against residents of U.S. territories in federal benefits programs by\u00a0declaring\u00a0\u2018there can be no second-class citizens in the United States of America.\u2019 So long as the United States has territories, the people who live there should enjoy the same basic rights and protections as people who live anywhere else in the United States\u2014their race, geography, or status should not justify discrimination,\u201d said\u00a0David Cole, National Legal Director of ACLU.<\/p>\n Neal Katyal, former acting solicitor general in the Obama-Biden Justice Department, also joined in the call for the Biden-Harris Justice Department to condemn the\u00a0Insular Cases. Katyal recently filed an\u00a0amicus brief\u00a0in\u00a0Fitisemanu\u00a0on behalf of descendants of Dred Scott and Isabel Gonzalez.<\/p>\n \u201cThe\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0are among the most terrible Supreme Court cases in U.S. history, and I very much hope that the Justice Department does not defend them today. One of my proudest moments as acting solicitor general was finally reckoning with the government\u2019s role in\u00a0Korematsu\u00a0and the internment of Japanese-Americans\u2014now is the time for the Justice Department to reckon with its role in the\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0and the colonial framework they established,\u201d\u00a0said Katyal, a partner at Hogan Lovells.<\/p>\n Fitisemanu\u00a0petitioners ask solicitor general to join in call to overrule\u00a0Insular Cases<\/strong><\/p>\n The\u00a0Fitisemanu\u00a0petitioners, through their lead counsel at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP,\u00a0has sent a\u00a0letter\u00a0 to the Solicitor General of the United States \u201cto urge the government to\u2026join petitioners in asking the Supreme Court to finally and formally overturn the\u00a0Insular Cases,\u201d noting \u201c[t]here are overwhelming legal, policy, and moral grounds to do so.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Members of Congress call on Biden and Harris to condemn\u00a0Insular Cases<\/strong><\/p>\n Delegate Stacey Plaskett, who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands as a non-voting delegate to Congress, and Rep. Ra\u00fal Grijalva, chair of the House Resources Committee, led a group of 23 members of Congress in a\u00a0letter\u00a0sent to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris that urges the Biden-Harris administration to \u201creject the\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0and the racist colonial framework they invented.\u201d They provided the following statements that were read at the press conference:<\/p>\n \u201cThe\u00a0Insular Cases, a series of Plessy-era Supreme Court decisions, established a racist and colonial legal framework that has denied the 3.6 million residents of U.S. territories equal constitutional rights and left them structurally disenfranchised for nearly 125 years,\u201d\u00a0said Plaskett.\u00a0\u201cIn 2022, no one should use the racist language from the Insular Cases to deny citizenship rights to people born in U.S. territories. Not federal judges. And certainly not the Biden-Harris Justice Department.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am committed to elevating and supporting the voices of all Americans, including those in the territories that have long been ignored and whose privileges as citizens have been denied to them solely based on where they happen to live,\u201d\u00a0said Grijalva.\u00a0\u201cEqual justice under the law and access to basic rights and protections should not be conditional on where you live or where you were born.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Insular Cases\u00a0continue to harm people from US territories<\/strong><\/p>\n John Fitisemanu, lead plaintiff in\u00a0Fitisemanu v. United States, was among several individuals from U.S. territories who spoke about the harms that the\u00a0Insular Cases,\u00a0and the colonial framework they established, have had on their lives.<\/p>\n \u201cI am a passport-holding, tax-paying American born on U.S. soil, yet the U.S. Justice Department continues to rely on the racist\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0to argue that I have no right to call myself a U.S. citizen or vote in state and federal elections. That hurts\u2014those cases said people in overseas U.S. territories were \u2018unfit\u2019 for citizenship and voting because they were \u2018savages.\u2019 Haven\u2019t we moved past that?\u201d\u00a0said John Fitisemanu,\u00a0born in American Samoa and who now lives in Utah, where he cannot vote in state or federal elections as a non-citizen.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Biden Harris Administration has the opportunity to take a stand and help turn the page on the\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0and the discriminatory framework they created,\u201d said\u00a0David Diamadi, the father of Haley Nicole Diamadi, both of whom live in Guam. \u201cI feel my daughter Haley deserves better. Every disabled adult living in the U.S. territories deserves better. And by better I simply mean as equals, no more, no less than our fellow citizens in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot having a vote matters when your community is ravaged like ours was by Hurricane Irma and Maria. Not having a vote matters when your community is denied equality and federal benefits. Not having a vote matters when generations of friends and loved ones are sent to war with some never coming back, and never having the right to vote for their own commander-in-chief,\u201d said\u00a0Lavonne Wise, a plaintiff in\u00a0Segovia v. United States, which sought to expand voting rights in U.S. territories. \u201cIt’s long past time to override the insular cases and dismantle the un-American colonial system they established.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLast year President Biden addressed ongoing discrimination against Puerto Ricans by declaring \u2018there can be no second-class citizens in the United States of America.\u2019 That gave me hope. But at the same time his Administration continues embracing the racist\u00a0Insular Cases,\u201d said\u00a0Louis Lajara, who retired from the U.S. Air Force and served as a postmaster in his home of Puerto Rico. \u201cEnding second-class citizenship means ending the Insular Cases\u2014President Biden needs to take action now to live up to his promises.\u201d<\/p>\n Next steps<\/strong><\/p>\n The call on the Biden-Harris Administration to condemn the\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0is part of a broader\u00a0campaign\u00a0to overrule the\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0and dismantle the colonial framework they established. Additional information about this campaign\u00a0is available\u00a0here.\u00a0<\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Justice has until\u00a0July 29, 2022, to tell the Supreme Court whether it will join advocates calling for the\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0to be overruled, or whether it will oppose them.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Supreme Court will decide whether to take up the case, and with it, the call to overrule the\u00a0Insular Cases,\u00a0when it considers the\u00a0Fitisemanu\u00a0petition this fall. 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