Someone please buy the Wall Street Journal a globe. Or at the very least, give them a link to a Wikipedia article on Puerto Rico.
The Wall Street Journal issued a dire warning that the unfolding debt crisis in Puerto Rico could create an “exodus” of “Puerto Rican refugees” to the United States who would vote for Democrats and soak up public benefits.
Here’s the concept that the WSJ seems to find difficult: residents of Puerto Rico are United States citizens. If someone from Puerto Rico moves to another location within the United States, that person is no more a refugee than someone who heads to California for a job or someone—like say the managing editor of a business-oriented newspaper—who resigns and moves elsewhere because he doesn’t want to work for biased owners.
Puerto Ricans have the same right as other Americans to live in any part of the country. And if it seems that a high number of these Americans are moving right now, it’s because Wall Street is doing its best to crush the island with debt.
The sudden concern over the possibility of a Puerto Rican diaspora comes because the island’s government was forced to miss a debt payment on Monday. Already the population of Puerto Rico is down by 9 percent, and that’s before the latest round of problems. Schools, health care, and everyday services are suffering simply because Congress won’t allow Puerto Rico to restructure its debt under Chapter 9, the same way as a municipality like Detroit or a county like Jefferson County, Alabama.