Justice Department condemns Supreme Court’s racist ‘island cases’

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has taken new steps to condemn a series of racist Supreme Court rulings from a century ago that effectively allowed people living in U.S. territories to be treated as second-class citizens.

In a letter obtained by NBC News and sent last week to a mostly Democratic group of lawmakers, Deputy Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte went further than the department ever has in repudiating the rulings, which the administration has relied on in past litigation.

“The Department unequivocally condemns the racist rhetoric and reasoning of the Insular Cases and unequivocally shares its view that such reasoning and rhetoric are irreconcilable with fundamental American principles of equality, justice, and democracy,” he wrote.

Uriarte added that the Justice Department has taken steps internally to ensure that lawyers “consistently apply the same approach” across offices.

The Island Cases were a series of rulings issued in 1900, shortly after the US acquired Puerto Rico and other territories. The court said the rights enjoyed by people on the U.S. mainland did not necessarily extend to people in Puerto Rico and other newly acquired territories.

While the letter is the strongest public statement the department has ever made on the issue, it stopped short of saying the government would ask the Supreme Court to overturn the cases.

The letter was a response to a request from lawmakers in April asking the department to publicly reject any reliance on the cases.

“We are pleased with the Justice Department’s action to unequivocally reject the racist Insular Cases doctrine,” said Representative Raúl Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona, who is the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee and helped organize the letter, in an announcement. declaration.

“This is an important step toward the Supreme Court finally overturning these discriminatory rulings, which have served to justify the denial of equal rights and self-determination to communities of color in U.S. territories for nearly 125 years,” he added.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D.-Ill, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, also welcomed the development, saying it “marks progress for our democracy, its promise of equality before the law and Democrats’ quest to bring balance to our justice system.”

Neil Weare, co-director of an advocacy group called Democracy Rights, which has sought to undermine the Island Cases, said it was significant that the Justice Department had made a strong public statement.

“This goes beyond what they have previously said in court filings and makes clear that their policy of dismissing Island Cases will apply at all levels of the department,” he added.

The Island Cases were steeped in racist language, with one judge referring to the territories as places “inhabited by alien races” that may not respect “Anglo-Saxon principles”. Another judge wrote that the United States had the right to acquire “an unknown island, peopled by an uncivilized race,” without having to confer full constitutional protections.

To date, the Supreme Court has rejected efforts to overturn the Insular Cases, although two justices, conservative Neil Gorsuch and liberal Sonia Sotomayor, appear open to the idea.

There are five US territories: Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Puerto Rico, with about 3 million residents, is by far the largest by population.