Puerto Rico Independence Memo Tests GOP Interest

A draft memo in the form of a presidential executive order initiating a process for Puerto Rico’s independence under the Trump administration was generated by a Puerto Rican group as a lobbying document to gain Republican feedback and support, according to the group behind it.

On Friday, DailyMail.com broke the story about the document’s existence but did not identify its author, saying only that “the order appears to have been drawn up by a congressional office and leaders of Puerto Rico secessionist efforts.” This led critics, including the government of Puerto Rico, to call the reporting false and say no document existed.

On Saturday, El Nuevo Día identified the Puerto Rican Alliance (PRÁ), a group of pro-independence lawyers, economists, academics, professionals, and activists, as the memo’s authors.

PRÁ also shared the seven-page document on a Sunday social media thread, saying that statehooders supporters in Puerto Rico who can’t speak English will soon get a translation in Spanish.

The group’s core members are Edil Sepúlveda (PRÁ founder and formerly of Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora), Rolando Emmanuelli Jiménez, Carlos Rivera Lugo, Javier Hernández, and Christina Mojica. (Editor’s Note: Hernández volunteered to file an opinion piece for The Latino Newsletter last September.)

This is the full seven-page draft.

Certified Mailings

During a 30-minute phone call on Sunday with The Latino Newsletter, Sepúlveda said the group had earlier this year sent 33 certified mailings of the document with a one-page cover memo to Trump administration officials, including current Cabinet members and White House staffers.

According to DailyMail.com, at least two congressional offices and multiple high-ranking officials in the Trump administration are in “possession” of the draft executive order. Names such as “Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) and potentially other Cabinet secretaries” are mentioned.

Sources with direct knowledge of the document’s presence in the Trump White House told The Latino Newsletter that questions have been raised about why such a document is now being discussed within Republican circles.

Sepúlveda said his group met with the office of Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and is scheduled to meet with the office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). There are also plans to meet with The Heritage Foundation, Sepúlveda noted.

As for how DailyMail.com obtained the seven-page draft, Sepúlveda said that nobody at PRÁ shared the document with the outlet. (By Monday afternoon, DailyMail.com was confirming the same information.)

“The Daily Mail didn’t receive this document from us. Someone else sent that, and I think the Daily Mail thought it was worthy of reporting accurately. So it means that this document is being circulated,” Sepúlveda said, noting that PRÁ was also beginning its media outreach strategy and was in the middle of pitching an exclusive story about the document when the DailyMail.com published its Friday story.

PRÁ deliberately focused on Republicans because the status debate in Washington has long been dominated by statehood advocates, leaving little room for independence as a serious policy discussion, according to what Sepúlveda told The Latino Newsletter. The group describes itself as politically independent but sees building relationships with Republicans as necessary to shift the conversation.

“We know that there’s nothing that is going to happen regarding the political status issue of Puerto Rico in Washington for years to come because we know Republicans don’t want to talk about it,” Sepúlveda said. “So one idea to keep the conversation going was to draft an executive order and share it with Republican contacts.”

“We believe that, especially with Republicans, once they hear statehood, they don’t want to work on the political status of Puerto Rico, and especially on the Senate side,” Sepúlveda added. By presenting independence as an option aligned with conservative principles of fiscal responsibility and the billions of dollars it would save for the United States, for example, PRÁ will be able to get more Republicans to notice, he explained.

What Puerto Rico’s Government Is Saying

The government of Puerto Rico, led by pro-statehood Republican governor Jenniffer González-Colón, rejected the idea that independence is being seriously considered. On Friday, the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA) called the DailyMail.com report “fake.”

PRFAA Executive Director Gabriella Boffelli later stated that “There is no evidence whatsoever to support these allegations. Any insinuation of a secret plan to force Puerto Rico’s independence is completely false and only seeks to misinform and divert attention from the real issue: our political status.”

Over the weekend, many Puerto Ricans on social media shared similar “fake news” claims, including from some profiles who accused The Latino Newsletter of sharing the DailyMail.com story in the first place.

When asked about the government’s initial statements and social media reaction, Sepúlveda pushed back, insisting the draft executive order is real. However, he acknowledged that certain framing elements in the DailyMail.com report were inaccurate.

“Maybe what is false is the headline where it says that Trump is being pressured to give independence to Puerto Rico, but what is not false, and I want to be very clear about this, is that a draft of an executive order exists,” Sepúlveda said.

For the island’s seventh nonbinding status plebiscite last November, statehood won in the first tally (56.87%), with independence receiving 30.84% of the vote and free association with 12.29%. Earlier this year, an adjusted second tally gave statehood 58.61% of the vote, with independence dropping to 11.82% and free association increasing to 29.57%. That second tally was published after Puerto Rico’s election commission claimed Dominion Voting Systems inverted the numbers between independence and free association.

Statehood advocates are using the latest nonbinding results to keep the debate relevant under the Trump administration. Last week, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Puerto Rico, days after the island’s government held an equality and statehood summit in Washington, D.C.

‘A Desperate Attempt’

Also on Sunday, The Latino Newsletter contacted several Puerto Rican organizations focused on the politics of the status question to ask about PRÁ’s memo strategy.

George Laws García, Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Statehood Council, called it “a desperate attempt,” sharply criticizing the group’s core members and their intentions.

“The purported ‘memo’ and ‘draft executive order’ produced by Javier Hernández and the handful of others in his group are a desperate attempt to cause confusion and chaos that lack any credibility whatsoever. Under the U.S. Constitution, only Congress has the power to modify the political status of U.S. territories.

“Mr. Hernández has a long history of election denial and distorting facts to suit his ideological agenda without the least regard to truth or the damage that his actions cause to the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico. This latest attempt to undermine the democratic will of the majority of voters in Puerto Rico who have voted four times this century to end the current territorial status and for statehood as their preferred option is desperate and frankly pathetic. Hernández and his co-conspirators have all the right in the world to support independence for Puerto Rico, but their attempts to impose it on the island against the will of local voters shows a complete disregard for the fundamental values of democracy and respect for rule of law.

“All that it demonstrates is that they have given up on trying to convince voters on the island to get majority support, and instead feel compelled to resort to distortions and manipulation as their only means to advance an independence which Puerto Rican voters have consistently rejected every time it’s been offered. If they want to engage in an honest conversation and effort to resolve the island’s colonial territory status, they can begin by accepting that independence can’t be imposed by the President and that a majority of Puerto Rico’s voters have to consent to any change in status for that change to be legitimate and democratic.”

Advancing the Debate

Two other organizations contacted, Power 4 Puerto Rico and Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora (BUDPR), also shared their comments about PRÁ’s tactics.

“The fact that the U.S. government has the power to unilaterally decide the future of Puerto Rico is the problem we need to solve. The time has come for bold action and Puerto Ricans need to ask ourselves what we’re going to do, instead of continuing to wait on what someone else is going to do TO us,” Power 4 Puerto Rico Director Erica González said.

BUPDR, which advocates for independence, shared the following statement:

“It is essential to continue demanding decolonization and independence for Puerto Rico, no matter who the U.S. president is or which party controls Congress.

“We believe that any effort to change Puerto Rico’s status should ideally be inclusive, democratic, and led by the Puerto Rican people. But these are not ideal times in American politics, and the United States has refused to engage in a serious and binding decolonization process for 126 years. It continues to ignore and reject calls for statehood.

“Supporters of statehood or of the status quo would prefer to ignore these political realities while Puerto Rico languishes as a colony. But we cannot afford to follow their lead and do nothing while the U.S. government continues to neglect Puerto Rico’s status.

“Unilateral action by a U.S. president who does not have the best interest of Puerto Ricans at heart may be a bad outcome. But Puerto Rico remaining a U.S. colony is even worse.

“Whether President Trump takes action on Puerto Rico or not, we hope that this moment serves as a wake-up call. The fact that Trump could do whatever he wants with Puerto Rico is a symptom of our colonial disease. Only independence would prevent Puerto Rico from being at the mercy of any U.S. president, and that is the right path for Puerto Rico no matter who supports it or why.”

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