Puerto Rican citizenship
In 1952, upon U.S. Congress approving the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, also reaffirmed that Puerto Rican citizenship continued in full force. This was further reaffirmed in 2006 while the U.S. Senate probed into the President's Task Force on Puerto Rico's status. In 1953, U.S Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., in a memorandum sent to the United Nations, recognized that "the people of Puerto Rico continue to be citizens of the United States as well as of Puerto Rico."
Statelessness
In 1994, Juan Mari Brás, a Puerto Rican lawyer and political historian, renounced his American citizenship before a consular agent in the United States Embassy of Venezuela. In December 1995, his loss of nationality was confirmed by the US Department of State. That same month, he requested that the Puerto Rico State Department furnish him with proof of his Puerto Rican citizenship. The request involved more than just a bureaucratic formality; Mari Brás tested the self-determination of Puerto Rico by trying to become the first Puerto Rican citizen who was not also an American citizen.