Other US policies have stifled Puerto Rican participation -- the aff can’t solve decades of harmful policies

The United States has continuously used Puerto Rico for various military and private economic purposes during the more than one hundred years of its second colonization.' 5 Nevertheless, in spite of United States citizenship, and because of our social construction as a single non-white race, 6 all Puerto Ricans (on the island or in the United States "proper") are considered too inassimilable 17 to become fully "American."' 8 Moreover, the Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico, in spite of their United States citizenship, are deprived of full participation in the U.S. political process. The island Puerto Ricans lack a congressional delegation and are not allowed to vote in presidential elections.' 9 This lack of political participation and power within the federal government-which I label a "democratic deficit"--leaves the residents of the island relegated to a political and economic underclass within the United States. This article primarily focuses on the plight of the Puerto Ricans on the island because, in addition to their flawed social construction by the United States and lack of national political power, they are also legally constructed as second-class citizens. In defining the legal rights of Puerto Ricans, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that territorial citizens are entitled to fewer constitutional protections than U.S. citizens residing in any of the fifty states.2 0 The racist and essentialist 2 1 social construction of the Puerto Ricans as inassimilable, the denial of legal rights by the courts, along with the democratic deficit which deprives those Puerto Ricans presently living on the island of participation in national elections, constitute the obstacles to full participation within United States society or to the establishment of their own independent sovereignty.