Justices uphold exclusion of territory from benefits

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has upheld the differential treatment of residents of Puerto Rico, ruling that Congress was within its power to exclude them from a benefits program that’s available in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The court held by an 8-1 vote last week that making Puerto Ricans ineligible for the Supplemental Security Income program, which provides benefits to older, disabled and blind Americans, did not unconstitutionally discriminate against them.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, whose parents were born in Puerto Rico, was the lone dissenter.

Writing for the court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the court was bound by a pair of earlier rulings that already upheld the federal law that created SSI and excluded Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories from it.

Kavanaugh wrote that “just as not every federal tax extends to residents of Puerto Rico, so too not every federal benefits program extends to residents of Puerto Rico.”

In dissent, Sotomayor responded, “In my view, there is no rational basis for Congress to treat needy citizens living anywhere in the United States so differently from others. To hold otherwise, as the Court does, is irrational and antithetical to the very nature of the SSI program and the equal protection of citizens guaranteed by the Constitution.”

The decision outraged many in Puerto Rico including Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, who said statehood is the only solution to Puerto Rico’s second-class status.

“The decision ... once again confirms that the territorial status of Puerto Rico is discriminatory for the island’s U.S. citizens,” he said in a statement.

Pierluisi noted that Puerto Rico also receives unequal treatment when it comes to Medicaid, Medicare and other federal programs.

Meanwhile, Jenniffer Gonzalez, Puerto Rico’s representative in Congress and a member of Pierluisi’s pro-statehood party, called the exclusion an “unbelievable discrimination” that keeps more than 300,000 people in extreme poverty.

The Biden administration has said it supports changing the law to extend SSI payments to Puerto Rico. It included a provision in its Build Back Better proposal to make residents of U.S. territories eligible for SSI payments, but the legislation is stalled in Congress.