Puerto Rican citizenship
On April 12, 1900, the United States Congress enacted the Foraker Act of 1900, which replaced the governing military regime in Puerto Rico with a civil form of government. Section VII of this act created a Puerto Rican citizenship for the residents "born in Puerto Rico and, therefore, subject to its jurisdiction." The Puerto Rican citizenship replaced the Spanish citizenship that Puerto Ricans held at the time in 1898. Such Puerto Rican citizenship was granted by Spain in 1897. This citizenship was reaffirmed by the United States Supreme Court in 1904 by its ruling in which denied that Puerto Ricans were United States citizens and labeled them as noncitizen nationals. In a 1914 letter of refusal to the offer of U.S. citizenship and addressed to both the President of the United States and the U.S. Congress, the Puerto Rico House of Delegates stated ""We, Porto Ricans, Spanish-Americans, of Latin soul ... are satisfied with our own beloved Porto Rican citizenship, and proud to have been born and brethren in our own motherland."" The official 1916 Report by the American colonial governor of Puerto Rico to the U.S. Secretary of War (the former name for the Department of Defense), addresses both citizenships, the Puerto Rican citizenship and United States citizenship, in the context of the issuance of passports, further evidencing that the Puerto Rican citizenship did not disappear when the Americans took over the island in 1898.
Puerto Rican migration to New York City
In 1902, the United States Treasury Department issued new immigration guidelines that changed the status of all Puerto Ricans to "foreigners." Isabel Gonzalez was a young single mother who was expecting her second child. Her fiancé, who was in New York, sent for her with the intention of getting married. When Gonzalez arrived in New York, she and all the Puerto Ricans who were with her, were detained in Ellis Island and denied entry. She was accused of being an alien and as an unwed parent she was deemed as a burden to the welfare system of the country. Gonzalez challenged the Government of the United States in the groundbreaking case "GONZALES v. WILLIAMS' (her surname was misspelled by immigration officials). The Supreme Court ruled that under the immigration laws González was not an alien, and therefore could not be denied entry into New York. It also stated that Puerto Ricans were not U.S. citizens, they were "noncitizen nationals." Gonzalez, who became an activist on behalf of all Puerto Ricans, paved the way for the Jones-Shafroth Act, which conferred United States citizenship on all citizens of Puerto Rico.