Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico, officially Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Spanish Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, is the self-governing island commonwealth of the West Indies, associated with the United States. The easternmost island of the Greater Antilles chain, it lies approximately 50 miles (80 km) east of the Dominican Republic, 40 miles (65 km) west of the Virgin Islands, and 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southeast of the U.S. state of Florida.

Whether Puerto Rico should be granted U.S. statehood is widely debated. Some argue that the residents of Puerto Rico (who are American citizens) are treated like second-class people and that denying them statehood is a racist and hypocritical partisan ploy by conservatives to withhold voting rights to about 3.1 million voters. Others argue that Puerto Rico was never intended to be a U.S. state and that granting it statehood is a partisan ploy by liberals to unfairly gain more voters for the passage of legislation that the majority of Americans reject and which can’t win approval under existing laws. For more on the statehood debate, visit ProCon.org.