P.R. Man Files Brief in Supreme Court Fight for Federal Benefits
The man fighting for federal benefits as a U.S. citizen of Puerto Rico said in a brief filed with the Supreme Court on Monday that the Justice Department’s bid to deny him those benefits based solely on where he lives is unconstitutional and represents a dangerous continuation of the racist “separate and unequal” doctrine of the Insular Cases.
2021-09-01 20:09:39 - VI News Staff
ose Luis Vaello Madero began receiving Supplemental Security Income benefits in 2012 as a resident of New York State. He continued to receive the payments when he moved home to Puerto Rico in 2013 until 2016, when the Social Security Administration said it was revoking his benefits retroactively to the date he established residency on the island because he was “outside the United States.”
In 2017 the DOJ filed a lawsuit invoking a criminal statute against Vaello Madero – with the threat of up to five years in jail – to recover the $28,081 in SSI benefits he received while in Puerto Rico.
The DOJ lost its case in the District Court of Puerto Rico, and again on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in April 2020. It then appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted review of the case in March.
The DOJ argued in its brief before the Supreme Court in June that while Congress has the power to extend SSI benefits to U.S. citizens residing in overseas territories, not doing so does not violate the Constitution because Puerto Rico’s “unique” status benefits its residents because they pay less in federal taxes and therefore can take care of their own.
In making its case, the DOJ relied on a series of Supreme Court decisions from the turn of the last century. Known collectively as the Insular Cases, they established a legal doctrine of “separate and unequal” status for U.S. citizens of overseas territories founded on the theory that their inhabitants belonged to “uncivilized” and “alien races” who were “unfit” to handle the full rights and duties of citizenship.
The legal team at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP that is representing Vaello Madero pro bono argued in their 63-page response on Monday that the DOJ’s justification for denying the SSI benefits is not only “wildly out of touch with Puerto Rico’s political and fiscal reality, but it also fails to explain why poor and disabled Americans in Puerto Rico must carry this burden while similarly situated Americans in the most autonomous jurisdictions in our federated system, states, are not required to make this sacrifice.”
The DOJ’s argument is facile at its core because SSI beneficiaries do not earn enough money to pay federal taxes, it is not a self-funded program like Social Security, and the poorest to the richest states receive support as well as the Northern Mariana Islands, which has similar tax exemptions to Puerto Rico, the lawyers said.