Can a Puerto Rican be deported from the United States? The short answer is no, of course not. People born in Puerto Rico have birthright U.S. citizenship and Puerto Rico is a territory belonging to the United States. Citizens cannot be deported from their own country.
Yet people are feeling worried about this issue and asking this question. The Supreme Court is considering hearing arguments about the possibility of limiting birthright citizenship as enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. ICE has detained U.S. citizens. Many people on the mainland are still deeply ignorant about Puerto Rico. It’s not surprising that the question comes up.
So let’s look at the long answer
Where would a Puerto Rican be deported to?
In general, people are deported to their home country — literally sent back where they came from. It would not be possible to deport a Puerto Rican from the United States to Puerto Rico, because Puerto Rico is part of the United States. Deporting someone from Miami to Puerto Rico would be equivalent to deporting them to Ohio.
Yet the federal government has been deporting people to third countries. Rwanda has agreed to accept 250 deportees, and Eswatini has already received 15. El Salvador accepted hundreds of Venezuelans.
A North Carolina man of Puerto Rican heritage was actually deported to Mexico in 2008. This was an illegal action and an error, but the man faced significant hardships before he was able to come home.
Can a U.S. citizen be detained by ICE?
Once again, the answer should be no. But it has been happening quite a bit recently. Two firefighters, both U.S. citizens, were detained while they were actually fighting a fire in Washington. A 15 year old boy was arrested at gunpoint at his school in California. The New York Times confirmed more than a dozen cases.
None of these individuals faced deportation. but they were detained for hours, sometimes violently, in spite of their statements that they were U.S. citizens. So yes, U.S. citizens can be and have been detained.
Could the federal government change the rules to allow deportation of Puerto Ricans?
If we asked “Could the federal government change the rules to allow deportation of U.S. citizens?” the short answer would be no. The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution makes this impossible. An executive order calling for deportation of U.S. citizens would be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
But U.S. citizenship for people born in Puerto Rico is not protected by the 14th Amendment. It is statutory — based on a law passed by Congress — and not constitutional. So Congress could pass a new law rescinding U.S. citizenship for people born in Puerto Rico. That would change everything.
This is not a likely scenario. Puerto Rico is too important to the United States for that to be a good idea. But the only political status that guarantees U.S. citizenship is statehood. The 14th Amendment says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It refers only to people born in states.
It’s time for Puerto Rico to have the full protection of the U.S. Constitution. Tell your representatives that you want to see them on the right side of history.
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