In 2012, José Vaello-Madero, a U.S. citizen born in Puerto Rico but living in New York, applied for and received Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits because severe health problems left him unable to support himself. A year later, he moved to Puerto Rico to rejoin his family and care for his ailing wife. He continued to receive SSI benefits, unaware that federal law excludes Puerto Rico residents from the program, simply because they live in a U.S. territory rather than a state. In 2016, the federal government sued Vaello-Madero to collect over $28,000 it claimed it “overpaid.” On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear his case in United States v Vaello-Madero, a case that could help put an end to unconstitutional discrimination against residents of Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories.

SSI is a nationally-applicable program that provides benefits and support for seniors and people with disabilities with limited means. Eligibility should be solely based on one’s disability and financial means, but as Vaello-Madero learned, it also is dependent on where one lives. The law extends benefits to residents of all 50 states, and to residents of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory. But it denies assistance to the elderly and people with disabilities who happen to live in Puerto Rico or any other U.S. territory—even though most of them are U.S. citizens and all are entitled to equal protection under the Constitution.

In denying Puerto Rico residents access to SSI benefits, Congress continues a troubling and discriminatory pattern of affording residents of U.S. territories—overwhelmingly, people of color—second-class status. Congress, for example, also disfavors residents of the territories access to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding. Residents of U.S. territories are also often on the losing end of receiving emergency funding like the federal Coronavirus Relief (CARES) law or funds to rebuild after a devastating hurricane like the one that hit Puerto Rico in 2017.

In the Supreme Court, Vaello-Madero argues that denying him benefits simply because he now lives in Puerto Rico rather than New York is unconstitutional discrimination. His needs are exactly the same, whether he lives in Brooklyn or San Juan. And as a U.S. citizen, he is entitled to equal protection of the laws. However, the United States argues that the only way for Mr. Vaello-Madero and other residents of the territories to remedy this discrimination “is action by Congress.” But that reasoning ignores the fact that residents of the territories have virtually no real representation. In the Senate, they have no representation at all. In the House, residents of the territories have only a single non-voting delegate. People like Mr. Vaello-Madero cannot “resort to the polls” “for protection against abuses by [the] legislature.” Living in a territory the United States has held in limbo for over a century, representation in Congress remains closed to them by constitutional design.

Despite this systemic second-class treatment, residents of Puerto Rico, like those of Guam, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands, are entitled to equal protection of the laws of the United States.

This piece was originally published in The Hill on 11/8/21. The full piece can be found here.

I am a woman from Chiapas, Mexico, 45 years old and have lived in the U.S. for 17 years. I was working as a clerk in a store in Lake Worth, with another Mexican woman, when one afternoon two men entered with pistols.  One grabbed my workmate, threw her to the floor face down and bound her hands behind her back with a plastic zip tie. The second man jumped the counter and did the same to me. Me and my workmate were both terrified.

The second man emptied the cash register, grabbed  jewelry on display and then saw a lock box under the counter. He put the gun to my head and demanded I give him the key, or he would kill me. I told him I didn’t have the key, only the owner did. He screamed at me and threatened me some more with the gun to my head. He finally gave up; they shoved cloths into the mouths of me and my workmate and escaped. We were discovered by a customer an hour later.

When the police came, they asked me if I was willing to look at a book full of photographs of men who were known to be criminals. I was told by some people that it would be dangerous because if the police caught him, he might someday be out of jail and seek revenge against me. But there had been various armed robberies like that in the area. We weren’t the only victims; some people who were citizens were victimized too. I didn’t want those two criminals to come back and terrify us  or anyone else again. I did what the police asked me to do.

I looked at dozens of photographs but recognized him the moment I saw him again. It turned out he had committed a number of crimes. The police found him and arrested him. The last I heard he was in jail and would probably go to prison.

It was only after this all happened that I learned of the existence of U-visas. I now have an attorney who has applied for me. A person who is undocumented, like me, who helps police solve a crime and put criminals in prison, can receive protection from deportation if they receive a U-visa. Many more immigrants would cooperate with police to solve crimes if they knew about U-visas. I myself was at one point in my life the victim of domestic abuse. I was beaten by my partner numerous times. If I had known about the U-visa I would have gone to the police. Instead, just like many other immigrant women, I put up with behavior that could have left me badly injured or even dead.

Police need to use U-visas and also make sure that immigrants know U-visas exist. Everyone in the community, citizens and immigrants, will be safer.

Domestic abuse and human trafficking exist throughout our society, but immigrant women are often particularly vulnerable to these horrendous crimes. I am an immigration attorney and have seen too many of these cases. Sometimes they have suffered physical and mental abuse for years because they won’t contact the police, afraid of being reported to immigration agents, deported and separated from their children. Sometimes it goes on so long they end up dead.

But those women are not the only victims of crime in immigrant communities. Local police will tell you that immigrants have more often been the victims of crimes than the perpetrators. Criminals have always figured that immigrants would be afraid to report crimes against them to the police because they feared being turned over to immigration agents.  In certain neighborhoods crime waves occurred without the local authorities ever being informed. Immigrants lived in fear and the criminals flourished, which put all the residents of those cities in danger. It is a phenomenon that has frustrated police all over the country.

That can be addressed with U-visas. An immigrant who is willing to cooperate with law enforcement authorities to bring a criminal to justice can be issued a U-visa, which protects that person from being detained and possibly deported by immigration authorities. In the case of women suffering domestic abuse, the U-visa allows them to report the crime to police rather than live in silence and fear. Also, without the protection of a U-visa a woman who has reported her husband for domestic abuse-leading to his deportation-can end up being deported back to the very place her husband now finds himself, which puts her life in danger. I have represented numerous immigrant women who were saved from serious ongoing abuse-sometimes life threatening abuse-by the implementation of U-visas.

In Palm Beach County, where I work, relations and cooperation between immigrants and law enforcement have improved tremendously and made us all safer, in part by the use of these protective visas.

The use of U-visas is a smart and humane way for Florida law enforcement to reduce crime and human suffering. Local residents should press their police for the greater use of U-visas. They are good for all of us.