Puerto Rican citizenship
On March 2, 1917, the Jones–Shafroth Act was signed, collectively making Puerto Ricans United States citizens without rescinding their Puerto Rican citizenship. In 1922, the U.S. Supreme court in the case of "Balzac v. Porto Rico" ruled that the full protection and rights of the U.S constitution do not apply to residents of Puerto Rico until they come to reside in the United States proper. Luis Muñoz Rivera, who participated in the creation of the Jones-Shafroth Act, gave a speech in the U.S. House floor that argued in favor of Puerto Rican citizenship. He declared that "if the earth were to swallow the island, Puerto Ricans would prefer American citizenship to any citizenship in the world. But as long as the island existed, the residents preferred Puerto Rican citizenship." The Jones Act allowed locals to renounce the United States citizenship and remain exclusively Puerto Rican citizens, at the cost of being stripped of the right to vote. Despite these arbitrary limitations, 287 residents completed the process to forfeit the statutory recognition.
Crime in Puerto Rico
The island possessed approximately one million residents at that time. The aftermath of the Puerto Rican campaign notably included a 1917 measure affirming Puerto Ricans as legal U.S. citizens. Resistance to such assimilation on the island failed to significantly slow down the process. As an unincorporated U.S. territory, the Constitution of the U.S. and edifice of federal law has applied to multiple aspects of life in Puerto Rico from participation in Social Security to use of the U.S. Postal Service.