Help Puerto Rico

Fellow U.S. citizens need hurricane aid

The nation united behind Houston during our time of need after Hurricane Harvey. Volunteers and charity fundraisers from coast to coast rallied the resources to help get us out of the muck and back on our feet. Congress acted quickly to pass a $15 billion recovery bill — double the original proposal — and a more robust bill is expected in October.

Now, even as the debris still remains in the streets, our city has a responsibility to guarantee that this national unity can be sustained and redirected to help the latest victims of tropical fury in Puerto Rico.

Hurricane Maria bombarded the island territory with wind and rain, leaving its 3.4 million residents almost entirely without power. Shortages of food and water are imminent, thousands crowd the airports in a desperate attempt to flee to the mainland, hospitals are running out of supplies, the agriculture industry has been devastated, and parts of the island’s interior have been cut off from all communication.

Puerto Rico faces a humanitarian crisis that threatens to eclipse even Hurricane Katrina, and the United States must act.

Those millions born in Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens, but cannot vote for president and have no representation in Congress, so it falls on the rest of the United States to put political pressure on Washington to deliver federal emergency dollars and other resources.

Federal aid has already started to arrive, and the state of New York has sent skilled experts to work on bringing the power grid back online. But beyond the immediate recovery response, Puerto Rico will require robust federal support to help it rebuild. Even before Maria, the territory had been ravaged by an economic storm that left it with $123 billion in debt and under the oversight of a federal board.

Congress, and the nation as a whole, must start asking the serious questions about how Puerto Rico fits into our representative republic — and that includes considering statehood.

For now, however, Puerto Rico needs quick and decisive action to prevent the island from falling over the precipice. This means manpower and money — from both the private and public sector.

This movement for Puerto Rico will have to be built from the bottom up, because it looks like leadership at the top has decided to ignore the ongoing crisis.

Rather than reaching out to and advocating for his fellow citizens in the Caribbean, President Donald Trump spent the weekend picking a fight on Twitter with professional athletes who protest racial inequality and police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem.

Our fellow Americans across the sea are in a dire moment of need — it is time to unite for Puerto Rico.