Senior US Virgin Islands Official Urges Repeal of Law Classifying Residents as Second-Class Citizens
WASHINGTON, DC – A senior official of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) government is urging the Department of Justice to end the classification of residents of US territories, including those in the Caribbean as second-class citizens.
Director of State and Federal Relations for the USVI Virgin Islands government, Teri Helenese, said the change would emphasise the urgency of reforming policies that undermine the fundamental rights and dignity of these American citizens.
Helenese has criticised the “undemocratic colonial framework” established by the Insular Cases, which deemed the “half-civilized,” “savage,” “alien races” living in Puerto Rico, Guam, and other so-called “unincorporated” US territories were not entitled to the same constitutional rights and democratic participation because they were “unfit” and could not understand “Anglo-Saxon principles.”
Helenese has joined the call for repealing “this anachronistic legal stance,” which she said not only “undermines the integrity of our republic but also inflicts unconscionable damage on the residents of these territories.”
Helenese said it was a moral imperative to rectify this injustice, echoing leaders across party lines, including Supreme Court Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch, who had taken the lead and condemned the Insular Cases for their baseless racial prejudices, “which have no place in our law.”
She said that USVI Governor Albert Bryan Jr. Noted that the outdated rulings had enforced a century-long history of disenfranchisement and second-class status for Virgin Islanders. “Virgin Islanders deserve to enjoy the full range of civil and political rights afforded by the U.S. Constitution,” she said, noting that President Joe Biden is on record as saying “there’s can be no second-class citizens in the United States of America”.
Helenese said she is calling for the Department of Justice to abandon its reliance on the Insular Cases “that stain our democracy and mock the anti-colonial values of our nation’s founding.”
She joined fellow leaders in demanding immediate action to eliminate the “blight of the Insular Cases from our legal system” adding that repealing the measure will not only heal the wounds inflicted on the residents of US territories but will also restore the principles of justice and equality that form the bedrock of America.
