11 May 2021 — MROnline
by Pedro Caban
On April 14, 2021 the House Committee on Natural Resources held hearings on two competing bills to end Puerto Rico’s colonial status. The different bills reflect the changing political dynamics in the archipelago, as well as the Puerto Rican diaspora’s growing political clout. H.R.1522, the Puerto Rican State Admission Act, binds Congress to admit Puerto Rico into the Union if a majority vote in favor of doing so in a special referendum. H.R. 2070, the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act, authorizes the insular legislature to convene a semi-permanent status convention where elected delegates decide on alternative self-determination options that are “outside the territorial clause of the constitution.” The bill creates a bilateral negotiating commission of U.S. government officials and the convention delegates. In a referendum, voters will select a territorial option, which may include statehood, independence and sovereign free association. The bill requires that Congress “approve a joint resolution to ratify the preferred self-determination option” approved in a referendum. Commonwealth (or Estado Libre Asociado–ELA in Spanish) is not included as an option in this status bill.
Protests outside Hancock Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York, in 2014. [Source: 
Tamanisha John 
Members of Syria’s Civil Defence service (White Helmets) look for wounded people in the rubble after a reported explosion in a depot close to a camp for the internally displaced near al-Fua, in the country’s northwestern Idlib province, on May 3, 2021. © AFP / Omar HAJ KADOUR
