People born in Puerto Rico but living in a U.S. state could face a complicated situation if Puerto Rico were to become independent. Depending on the details of the relationship between the United States and a new Republic of Puerto Rico, stateside citizens who born in Puerto Rico might lose their U.S. citizenship.
When the Philippines became independent, Filipinos in the United States, who were U.S. nationals at the time, were offered a streamlined naturalization process if they wanted to become U.S. citizens. This could be a good plan for Puerto Ricans as well, but there are no guarantees that an expedited path to secure Constitutional U.S. citizenship would be provided.
Expedited U.S. citizenship
Directly after World War II and shortly before independence for the Philippines, Filipino veterans of the U.S. military could become U.S. citizens by a simple process handled by the military. About 7,000 of these veterans were naturalized before independence. The government of the Philippines objected, pointing out that they were losing manpower that the new nation needed. In light of their objection, the U.S. stopped offering this form of expedited citizenship in 1945.
The Luce-Celler Act of 1946 allowed people from the Philippines to become naturalized U.S. citizens for the first time. However, it set a quota of just 100 people, far fewer than the demand for citizenship. Many Filipinos just stayed in the country and hoped not to be deported.
Normally, people who are already permanent residents of the United States spend about two years applying for and receiving citizenship. They generally cannot apply until they have lived in the U.S. as a legal permanent resident for five years. For people born in the territory of Puerto Rico, it would be possible for Congress to waive the residency requirement if there is political support for it, but in the current political climate this would be a steep uphill battle, and it is equally unclear how the U.S. would respond if Puerto Ricans were to start moving to the U.S. in record numbers as independence became imminent.
Not certain
There is no assurance that expedited U.S. citizenship would happen, and there’s certainly not much in the way of precedent for it. For example, the U.S. has an especially close relationships with three Pacific Island nations – Palau, Republic of the Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia – collectively referred to as the freely associated states (FAS). FAS citizens even fight in the U.S. military, but they are not U.S. citizens. During the most recent renewal of the FAS compacts, there was a call for an expedited process to grant US citizenship for citizens of the freely associated states. It was not successful.
“[T]oo often Compact citizens living in the US face challenges green-card holders do not face,” testified Dr. Peter Watson, an expert on the Freely Associated States and member of the U.S.-Palau Economic Advisory Group. “A pathway to citizenship afforded to immigrants from non-Compact nations is not afforded to Compact immigrants.”
There is no expedited U.S. citizenship process even for our closest allies. Given the current political environment it would be naïve to expect an expedited U.S. citizenship process for Puerto Ricans living stateside if Puerto Rico were to be independent (with or without a military free association). There would probably be some process of documenting the Puerto Ricans who live in states, as they would be considered foreigners upon Puerto Rico independence and the U.S. would need to have some record of them. They would then likely be granted the opportunity to gain constitutional US citizenship. But they may have to wait on a very long line, and the risk of deportation may be nerve wracking for those who choose to remain stateside.
