{"id":408232,"date":"2024-04-19T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=408232"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"DOJ-urged-to-denounce-Insular-Cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/DOJ-urged-to-denounce-Insular-Cases\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ urged to denounce Insular Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014<\/strong>House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Ra\u00fal M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.; represented by staff) and Congresswoman Stacey E. Plaskett (D-V.I.) were joined by civil rights groups and other allies to call on the U.S. Department of Justice to condemn and cease its reliance on the Insular Cases, a series of racist U.S. Supreme Court decisions that broke from prior precedent to justify colonial governance in the U.S. territories.<\/p>\n

The members also announced that they sent a bipartisan, bicameral letter to DOJ earlier this week signed by a total of 43 members of Congress, including House Judiciary ranking member Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).<\/p>\n

The letter follows a filing by the Justice Department last month in which it stated that \u201caspects of the Insular Cases\u2019 reasoning and rhetoric, which invoke racist stereotypes, are indefensible and repugnant.\u201d However, the court has yet to reject the doctrine wholly and expressly. The Insular Cases stand alongside infamous decisions, including Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson,<\/em> and Korematsu v. United States,<\/em> yet unlike those decisions, they continue to be defended by DOJ.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Justice Department has made strides in the right direction by criticizing \u2018aspects\u2019 of the racist Insular Cases as \u2018indefensible and repugnant.\u2019 But it is time for DOJ to go further and unequivocally reject these racist decisions, much as it has for other Supreme Court opinions that relied on racist stereotypes that do not abide by the Constitution\u2019s command of equality and respect for rule of law,\u201d said Grijalva.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Justice Department has a crucial opportunity to take the lead in rejecting the Insular Cases. For far too long these decisions have justified a racist and colonial legal framework that has structurally disenfranchised the 3.6 million residents of U.S. territories and denied them equal constitutional rights. Neither the DOJ nor anyone else should be defending any \u2018aspects\u2019 of the racist Insular Cases,\u201d said Plaskett.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Insular Cases are a stain on the history of our country and its highest court. To this day, these decisions still impact those who live in U.S. territories. We need to acknowledge that these explicitly racist decisions were wrongly decided, and I encourage the Department of Justice to say so,\u201d said U.S. Senate Majority Whip and Senate Judiciary Committee chair Durbin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Justice stands at a pivotal moment to correct a historic injustice and end the second-class treatment of the over 3 million citizens who live in U.S. territories. Our government is long overdue in rejecting this racist and discriminatory doctrine, and I\u2019m proud to join my colleagues in this effort to end the DOJ\u2019s reliance on this odious case law,\u201d said House Judiciary Committee ranking member Nadler.<\/p>\n

Statements from organizations and allies<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Justice Department has the opportunity to make up for the racist arguments it presented to the Supreme Court in the early 1900s that laid the foundation for Insular Cases, calling people in island territories \u2018savage and half-civilized\u2019 and arguing they could be denied basic constitutional rights and self-determination,\u201d said Adi Mart\u00ednez-Rom\u00e1n, co-director of Right to Democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate the recognition by so many in Congress, including leaders in the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, that it is time to turn the page on the Insular Cases and the racist doctrine of \u2018separate and unequal\u2019 status they created,\u201d said Neil Weare, co-director of Right to Democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe enduring influence of the Insular Cases underscores a troubling legacy steeped in racism. We urge the Department of Justice to publicly reject any continued reliance on them. These antiquated precedents are foundational to the U.S.\u2019s discriminatory and colonial relationship with the territories and subvert the ultimate goal of self-determination. The DOJ\u2019s disavowal of them would be a small but meaningful step towards helping redress this historical injustice,\u201d said Alejandro A. Ortiz, senior counsel for the Racial Justice Program at ACLU.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe applaud the members of Congress for calling on the Department of Justice to unequivocally condemn the insular cases. The systemic discrimination sustained by the Insular Cases belongs in our history books, instead they are being used as the basis for decision-making about Puerto Rico and other territories. We support Congress\u2019 call to reject the Insular Cases to protect the constitutional and human rights of people in the territories,\u201d said Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of Hispanic Federation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe support the Congressional delegation\u2019s call for the Justice Department to denounce the Insular Cases,\u201d said Lourdes M. Rosado, president and General Counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF. \u201cOur government is long overdue to fully reject the precedent these cases have set for more than a century, and how their racist, discriminatory language has influenced how Puerto Ricans and other residents of U.S. territories are treated as second-class citizens by multiple U.S. laws and policies. Moreover, we would welcome proposals to rectify the historical injustices they represent by eliminating policies that discriminate against residents of U.S. territories when it comes to public benefits and rights other U.S. citizens receive.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, Virgin Islands Gov. Albert Bryan, Jr. and Manuel Quilichini, president of the Colegio de Abogados y Abogadas de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Bar Association), have also sent letters to DOJ urging the Department to condemn the Insular Cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cVirgin Islanders deserve to enjoy the full range of civil and political rights afforded by the U.S. Constitution,\u201d said Governor Bryan, who wrote to DOJ last month in advance of the 107th Anniversary of the United States purchasing the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1917.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Justice Department has the opportunity to redress its historic and ongoing error by unequivocally rejecting the discriminatory and racist doctrine of territorial incorporation established by the Insular Cases,\u201d said Quilichini, who wrote to DOJ earlier this month. This followed a 2022 resolution by the American Bar Association and similar letters from the Virgin Islands Bar Association and New York State Bar Association to the Justice Department. (PR)<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ra\u00fal M. Grijalva<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Ra\u00fal M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.; represented by staff) and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408232","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}