SAN JUAN — The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Puerto Rico Police (PRP) discussed a pro-independence activist group during a meeting on domestic terrorism last year, according to documents obtained by The Latino Newsletter. 

An August 2024 document notes that a police commander shared information with the FBI about the pro-independence activist group, Jornada Se Acabaron Las Promesas (JSALPPR), during an “awareness briefing” about the domestic terrorism threat in Puerto Rico. Additional documents reveal that the FBI discussed the group on other occasions since 2018.

However, the specific information shared about JSALPPR was redacted.

“It’s evidence of a pattern of political persecution, especially because putting us in the category of terrorists is nonsense,” Jocelyn Velázquez, JSALPPR founder, told The Latino Newsletter.

The purpose of the 2024 meeting was to liaise with the “Operational Tactics and Strike Force” components of the PRP. (The FBI was likely referring to the “Tactical Operations” unit, which deploys riot police to protests.)

The documents struck a chord with Velázquez because the memory of “las carpetas,” a mass surveillance program operated by the FBI and the PRP, hangs heavy. The program surveilled over 100,000 people and produced more than 1.5 million pages of documents between the 1930s and the mid-1980s. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) also spied on Puerto Rican activists separately. 

The Latino Newsletter obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FBI. They consist of three forms to document meetings and communications. One page of the 2018 form was deleted in its entirety, according to the released documents. 

Formed after the U.S. government imposed the Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) in 2016, JSALPPR has spearheaded protests in the archipelago for nearly a decade. The group advocates Puerto Rico’s independence and an end to the austerity measures imposed by the FOMB. Several members of the group have been detained or arrested while participating in acts of civil disobedience.

While a handful of protests over the years have ended in police repression, the vast majority consist of simply marching while holding signs and chanting. 

During the 2024 meeting, FBI task force officers said they could only investigate criminal activity and violence, according to the documents.

Mari Mari Narváez, founder and executive director of the police accountability nonprofit Kilómetro 0, explained that this type of information-sharing and monitoring of activist groups can have a chilling effect on protests and free speech. President Donald Trump’s administration has ramped up attacks on social justice groups in the United States. The memory of “las carpetas” is still strong among activists.

“It's the criminalization of ideas. The criminalization of the struggle to demand the rights we're supposed to have,” Narváez said. She added that members from JSALPPR had previously been victims of police violence over the years.

“Nothing in these documents is evidence of any specific investigative activity,” wrote Limary Cruz Rubio, public affairs officer for the FBI’s San Juan office, in an emailed statement when asked if the agency was investigating JSALPPR. She stated that the documents are part of a continuous and routine exchange of information between law enforcement agencies. 

“If there was an investigation, DOJ policy prohibits that we confirm or deny its existence, and any investigation would have to be (as the documents you shared clearly state) regarding criminal activity, which of course, we would investigate aggressively,” she added. 

Cruz Rubio did not respond to a detailed list of questions about the documents and JSALPPR, including whether the agency considers it a possible domestic terror threat.

PRP spokesperson Juan Díaz Díaz did not respond to questions about the 2024 document and whether the agency believes JSALPPR to be a domestic terror threat in an emailed statement. He acknowledged a 2019 document, saying it lacked sufficient identifying information for them to comment on it or corroborate the meeting it describes took place.

A records request to the PRP about the 2024 domestic terrorism meeting yielded no responsive documents. The PRP’s current commissioner, Joseph González, was head of the FBI San Juan field office in 2024.

“Our administration cannot respond for any practices of previous administrations, at least in terms of the creation or maintenance of communications records,” Díaz Díaz wrote.

“We’re a target and we’re clear about that,” Velázquez said when asked about a new national security directive recently signed by Trump that identifies several common political beliefs, like “anticapitalism” and “anti-Americanism,” as potential indicators of domestic terrorist groups. The directive also ordered Joint Terrorism Task Forces — partnerships between the FBI and police — to “investigate and disrupt” groups that “foment political violence,” even “before they result in violent political acts.”

Human rights groups, Democratic lawmakers, and nonprofits were quick to condemn the directive, many calling it an overreach and a clear attempt to go after anybody who doesn’t agree with the Trump administration.

Narváez emphasized not to look at Trump’s announcement in a vacuum. Although she believes Trump’s current policies are attacking free speech rights, the 2024 meeting between the FBI and PRP occurred under the Biden administration. 

“Every administration in the U.S. has been equally repressive through the FBI in Puerto Rico, and this is a clear example of that,” Narváez said.

In recent years, law enforcement and Army personnel have participated in several events about terrorism in Puerto Rico.  This past summer, nearly a year after discussing JSALPPR during a domestic terrorism meeting with the police, the FBI held a “counterterrorism symposium” with the U.S. Army at Fort Buchanan.

Meanwhile, over 210 people, including counterintelligence soldiers and law enforcement agents, were trained in San Juan on how to address an “insider threat” during the largest counterintelligence training event in Army Reserve history. 

While the 2024 document is the most recent of the three forms, two other documents show the FBI has monitored JSALPPR before.

An October 2019 document shows FBI personnel spoke with a police lieutenant to gather information about JSALPPR. Its synopsis shows the meeting was “to document coordination.” However, what coordination it referred to has been redacted. 

According to the document, the lieutenant was “very familiar with the group Se Acabaron Las Promesas, also known as No Mas Promesas. He and his officers have regular interactions with the group, which is very vocal and organizes demonstrations regularly. The group is gaining popularity and is particularly prominent in and around the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) Rio Piedras campus. The Colectiva Feminista en Construcción is a feminist sub-group of Se Acabaron Las Promesas that also holds regular demonstrations.”

Shariana Ferrer Núñez and Zoán Dávila Roldán, founders of La Colectiva (also known as La Cole), said they are not a “sub-group” of JSALPPR. While both groups often plan events together and protest for similar causes, La Cole’s leaders explained that their Black, feminist, and anti-capitalist group was founded in 2014. JSALPPR was founded in 2016. 

“We believe another Puerto Rico is possible, and that is enough to attack us,” Ferrer Núñez said.

A FOIA request to the FBI, specifically regarding La Cole, yielded no additional documents not included in the initial release. The Latino Newsletter has appealed their determination. 

“This is a meeting that none of us in the Puerto Rico Police (in administration or communications) have any information about. I know you've shared an FBI document with us that references this meeting, but again, we have no information. We were not involved in this meeting, which apparently took place about six years ago. We also don't have any files, documents, or minutes that shed light on it,” Díaz Díaz wrote in an emailed statement. 

An April 2018 document shows that an FBI agent conducted an open-source search about JSALPPR based on information they received. The report identifies an item that was enclosed with the form that was not part of the FOIA release. When the Latino Newsletter appealed the FBI’s FOIA determination, the agency affirmed its redactions and the omission of the enclosure.

A JSALPPR activist claimed to have his phone seized by the FBI a little over a month after the date of the document, according to local news outlet Noticel.

Velázquez noted the dates on the 2018 and 2024 documents preceded a May Day protest and a protest against the FOMB. The latter also marks JSALPPR’s anniversary, she explained. 

It was unclear what could have prompted the 2019 meeting between the police and the FBI. However, Ferrer Núñez noted that 2019 was the year when JSALPPR and La Cole participated in protests that led to the ouster of then-Governor Ricardo Roselló.

For Velázquez, the documents signal acts of intimidation because they've never been charged with a serious crime.

“This is a register of the acts of intimidation of the state because they have never had a case to file against us. It doesn’t exist. We have never done anything outside of the laws they have created. We are exercising our right to freedom of expression. But, in a country where fear has been the strongest weapon to hold the people under the colonial yoke, what’s the state’s response? Intimidation,” Velázquez said.

She, along with Ferrer Núñez and Dávila Roldán, all described feeling like they were previously under surveillance or threatened by law enforcement. 

“That history of repression from the U.S. government and the government here in Puerto Rico is not a thing of the past. It’s a thing of the present. And this is the way. Thirty years ago, it was Los Macheteros. Today, it’s Jornada. It’s La Cole,” Dávila Roldán said. “It’s the groups that are organizing right now. That’s the connection. There it is. There’s a gaze that still exists. The government of Puerto Rico returned ‘carpetas’ and said they were sorry. They keep repressing the same people because many of the people who had a ‘carpeta’ are people who participate in this space.” 

Los Macheteros, a pro-independence activist group, was led by fugitive Filiberto Ojeda Ríos until he was killed by the FBI in 2005. Puerto Rico’s Civil Rights Commission later called it an “illegal killing.” Pro-independence activists, including JSALPPR and La Cole, commemorated the 20th anniversary of his death recently. 

The eight pages of documents obtained by The Latino Newsletter through FOIA can be downloaded below.

Carlos Berríos Polanco is a journalist from Puerto Rico who covers climate, conflict, and their intersection. He is also the Deputy Editor of The Latino Newsletter’s San Juan bureau.

Julio Ricardo Varela and Susanne Ramirez de Arellano edited this story.

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