Citizenship in U.S. Territories: Constitutional Right or Congressional Privilege?

Absent the 1917 Jones Act, would people born in Puerto Rico today be U.S. citizens? The Supreme Court has yet to provide a definitive answer to this question. But it may be presented the opportunity to do so as the result of legal challenges to federal laws that deny recognition of citizenship to individuals born in the U.S. territory of American Samoa. The status of people born in American Samoa today has parallels to the status of Puerto Ricans prior to the 1917 Jones Act: neither citizens nor aliens. This article argues that the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship throughout the territorial sovereignty of the United States: States, Territories, and the District of Columbia alike. Congress has no power to deny citizenship to people born in Puerto Rico, American Samoa, or any other U.S. territory. Resolving the question of citizenship in U.S. territories may also provide the Supreme Court an opportunity to finally reconsider the Insular Cases and their controversial doctrine of "separate and unequal" status for residents of so-called "unincorporated" U.S. territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]