Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rossello says he disagrees with Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who said President Trump would block the U.S. territory from becoming a state because of its Latino population.
“I think it’s a false narrative. Let’s just make it what this is: it’s a civil rights issue, it’s a democratic rights issue,” Rossello told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “Everybody knows that the U.S. is the third-largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world so this narrative about, you know, the U.S. not wanting a Latino state or a Hispanic state just doesn’t jibe with reality.”
Gutierrez, a progressive Democrat, issued a statement earlier this month ahead of Puerto Rico’s fifth nonbinding plebiscite for statehood that said the island’s Hispanic population would prevent it from being a state.
“The supporters of statehood are selling a fantasy that a Latino, Caribbean nation will be admitted as a state during the era of Donald Trump; that states, many of which supported Trump, will accept a Spanish-speaking state that will receive just as many senators and maybe even more House seats than they currently have,” Gutierrez said in a June 9 statement. “I do not point out Puerto Rico’s problems to denigrate my fellow Puerto Ricans, simply to point out the reality that what is being peddled by the supporters of statehood is a fantasy.”
Rossello, a member of the New Progressive Party in Puerto Rico, said he does not agree with the assessment of Gutierrez, who is the son of two Puerto Rican immigrants.
“If that’s his real assessment, then why doesn’t he join us in asking for statehood if he’s so certain that it’s not going to be given to Puerto Rico?” Rossello added.
Gutierrez opposes statehood and has called the move an attempt to distract the public from other issues on the island of 3.5 million residents.
