{"id":373981,"date":"2022-08-11T06:06:09","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T20:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=373981"},"modified":"2022-08-11T06:06:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T20:06:09","slug":"aba-resolution-supports-equality-in-us-territories-opposes-insular-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/aba-resolution-supports-equality-in-us-territories-opposes-insular-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"ABA resolution supports equality in US territories, opposes Insular Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Neil-Weare<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The American Bar Association\u2019s House of Delegates passed\u00a0Resolution 404 yesterday, calling for equal rights for the 3.6 million residents of U.S. territories and rejecting the\u00a0Insular Cases, a series of racist Supreme Court decisions that broke from precedent to establish a colonial framework for governing island territories.<\/p>\n

he resolution was co-sponsored by the New York State Bar Association, which recently established a\u00a0Task Force on the U.S. territories, and the Virgin Islands Bar Association, which in recent years has advanced a number of ABA resolutions to elevate legal and policy issues facing residents of U.S. territories.<\/p>\n

Sherry Levin Wallach, president of NYSBA, and Anthony Ciolli, past-president of the VI Bar, spoke in support of the resolution.<\/p>\n

The resolution is timely, as civil rights groups, leaders and former judges from U.S. territories, and others\u00a0press\u00a0the Biden-Harris Department of Justice to join rather than oppose calls for the Supreme Court to overrule the\u00a0Insular Cases. The Justice Department has until\u00a0Aug. 29\u00a0to either support or oppose a petition in\u00a0Fitisemanu v. United States\u00a0calling on the Supreme Court to finally consider \u201cwhether the\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0should be overruled.\u201d To date, the Justice Department has\u00a0relied\u00a0on some of the most racist passages of the\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0to argue that Congress has the power to deny birthright citizenship to people born in U.S. territories.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is great to see the ABA doing its part to reject the racist\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0and help dismantle the colonial framework they established. Today\u2019s resolution is a significant step toward addressing the ABA\u2019s own history, given that the father of the ABA, Yale Law School professor Simeon Baldwin, was one of the most prominent voices writing in support of the controversial legal theories that would become the\u00a0Insular Cases,\u201d said Neil Weare, president and founder of Equally American, which advocates for the United States to address its colonies problem. Weare also serves as co-counsel in\u00a0Fitisemanu v. United States, along with attorneys at Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher and American Samoan attorney Charles V. Ala\u2019ilima.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs institutions like the ABA grapple with their role in historically contributing to America\u2019s colonies problem, the U.S. Justice Department should reassess how its actions in court continue to do so even today,\u201d Weare added.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court is expected to decide whether or not to reconsider the\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0when it votes on the petition for certiorari in\u00a0Fitisemanu v. United States\u00a0this fall. (PR)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Bar Association\u2019s House of Delegates passed\u00a0Resolution 404 yesterday, calling for equal rights for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":373982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11113,9485,320],"class_list":["post-373981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-aba","tag-insular-cases","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}