Talk:Unincorporated territories of the United States

Should be a list
This is the history of these territories, while it should be a list of territories. --JokerXtreme (talk) 15:14, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Undue weight: 2008 PR District Court
I am removing text about the 2008 PR Dictrict Court for WP:UNDUE.

******PLEASE NOTE: Rather than starting a new discussion here, please join the ongoing WP:UNDUE discussion on this same addition at the Puerto Rico talk page HERE. My name is Mercy11 (talk) 10:38, 18 November 2011 (UTC), and I approve this message. ******PLEASE NOTE ABOVE BEFORE ADDING COMMENTS HERE

First footnote is nofile.
Does anyone have the current link for the first footnote -- ^ Definitions of insular area political organizations, Office of Insular Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior, retrieved 2007-11-14 --? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:23, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

The short answer is that the document seems to have been amended since two years past. At Definitions of insular area political organizations, "Unincorporated territory" reads, "A United States insular area in which the United States Congress has determined that only selected parts of the United States Constitution apply." viewed June 14, 1013. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:06, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Alaska as unincorporated
Alaska was not "expressly incorporated" by Congress. "Unincorporated" is a Court invented term of art to allow -- a) acquisition without citizenship, b) governance without constitution protections and c) discriminatory tax regimes akin to protective tariffs against the territories. (Insular Cases exempting territories from the state Uniformity Clause, are now used to justify lower taxes in the low-income territories.)

Alaska was judicially "incorporated" at Rassmussen because the Court saw Congress clearly intended to "expressly incorporate" Alaska when it made citizens and taxed them there. All inhabitants were not citizens, Alaska's admittance as a state is one of the longest delayed in American history due in part to issues surrounding non-citizen indigenous peoples.

Why would we not list Alaska as an unincorporated territory until the Supreme Court said Congress had made citizens there? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:50, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I can't agree that we should list Alaska as ever having been an unincorporated territory. First off, as you are probably aware, the distinction between "incorporated" and "unincorporated" territories did not really exist until the Supreme Court created it in the Insular Cases at the beginning of the 20th century. To debate whether Alaska was an incorporated or unincorporated territory in the 19th century would be a bit of a fictive exercise. (For information on the the governmental structure of Alaska in the 19th century, an excellent source is Ruth Van Cleve, The Office of Territorial Affairs, pp. 33-36.) Alaska didn't really have what we would recognize as a territorial form of government until an Organic Act was enacted in 1912, at which point it became an "organized" territory.
 * You are of course correct that Rassmussen did not hold that Alaska was incorporated until 1905. However, the decision in Rasmussen did not say that the Court was incorporating Alaska into the United States at that time; as I read the decision, it found that Alaska had always been an incorporated part of the United States since it was acquired in 1867. Thus, I don't see how Rasmussen supports the assertion that Alaska was an unincorporated territory before 1905.
 * Citizenship was collectively conferred on white Alaskans at the time of acquisition in 1867, in a provision contained in the Treaty of Cession itself. This is considered an important aspect of "incorporated" status. (Citizenship was not granted to the native Alaskan tribes ("Eskimos" and "Aleuts") until 1924, but the same was true of many Native Americans in the continental United States.)
 * I hope this is responsive to your question. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:43, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, but if I may pursue this line of thinking, as you seem to be conversant with several aspects of the history of US territories. What constitutes belonging to the US federal republic? My background in history has focused on the political branches: Congress and Executive. I discuss this issue with editors who do not understand the term as descriptive as at court, only pejorative to dismiss my argument.
 * Our Alaska Statehood Act article has Alaska a military district 1867-1884, first organic act with appointed governor as of 1884, second organic act 1912 with elected legislature and Congressional delegate. It seems that when a territory is organized, with a path to citizenship, elective self-government and a territory Member of Congress, it is a part of the federal republic.
 * But that reasoning, -- and primary, secondary government and scholarly sources including the 5 modern territories that fit that description, -- is denied on the grounds that only judicial "incorporation" is valid, common law applied by courts, not positive law by Congress. I am asked to find where the Insular Cases are overturned, but federal district upheld in circuit court observe Congress has by steps, over time, politically "incorporated" Puerto Rico. I had thought that the Insular Cases had an unusual political function for the Court, as described by Krishanti Vignarajah in the U. of Chicago Law Review [p.789-790], enabling territorial acquisition without citizenship, governance without the constitution, and a protective tax regime outside the Uniformity Clause applied to domestic states.
 * But judicially "unincorporated" modern territories have been politically made citizens - or given a path to citizenship -, established three-branch self-government with a territory Member of Congress, and the non-state tax regime no longer discriminates against, but favors the low-income territories. Is there a distinction to be made in this article between judicial "unincorporated" and Congressionally "incorporated" as Alaska? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 05:51, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm glad to continue discussing this with you, but I think you may be looking for more coherence in this area of the law (or politics) than actually exists. :)
 * You ask, "What constitutes belonging to the US federal republic?" There's not really an answer to that even today. Since 1898, for the first time, the United States has had territories which almost everyone would agree are intended to remain in a territorial status permanently. Consider, for example, Guam (ceded 1898) and the United States Virgin Islands (purchased 1917). The people of both of these territories are American citizens; there is no likelihood that they will cease being part of the United States (there are no independence movements to speak of, particularly in the Virgin Islands)&mdash;and yet there also is no likelihood that either territory will ever be granted statehood, if only because their populations are considered too small. The territories' residents can come and go freely from the continental United States, but they are not part of the customs territory of the United States, and they certainly cast no electoral votes in presidential elections. Do the Virgin Islands "belong to the US federal republic"? That's almost a philosphical question more than a legal one.
 * Current-day discussions of the incorporation doctrine are often dominated by political considerations affecting the status, and the future, of Puerto Rico, as well as by the concern that the result of the Insular Cases was driven by racism. It is certainly true that a concern underlying the cases was that the United States did not want too many "foreigners" to suddenly be declared American citizens. On the other hand, if the Supreme Court had held that that the Filipino people had all become United States citizens in 1898, would we have been able to grant independence to the Philippines in 1946?
 * I think the short answer to your question about Alaska is that it simply is not historically meaningful to debate whether a territory was incorporated or unincorporated before about 1901, because the distinction simply hadn't been recognized before that time. For more information than you probably want about how and why the distinction was made then, the best source is probably Burnett and Marshall, eds., Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution, or one of the other references cited in our Insular Cases article.
 * I hope this is helpful. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:18, 10 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Let me try to restate your view. Important criteria in modern conversation for inclusion in the US federal republic include a) likelihood of statehood, b) voting for president, c) population size, d) fundamental constitutional protections of due process but not equal tax regimes. But there MAY be sources for a more coherent view of US nationality. -- I understand the modern interest in the executive. Colonial Williamsburg for years prominently featured images of the Governor’s Palace logo on all its souvenirs, but once there was not a coffee cup with the House of Burgesses’ Capitol building. I get it, in come venues, John Adams beat Thomas Jefferson, ‘philosophically’ as you say. But my inquiry relates to the federal republic, which I understand is personified in Congress, not in the person of the chief-magistrate-supreme-honcho.


 * Any proposed deannexation of US citizens requires due process, as that provision of the constitution has been extended by Congress and the Supreme Court, both, to all five territories as explained in the GAO study of Insular Territory constitutional law. Had the Philippines had birthright US citizenship, my view is that their independence would have required a constitutional amendment. That is, the sovereign American people would have to be engaged concurrently with the consent of the Filipino people under due process of the constitution to fracture the "more perfect", "perpetual union" under the Constitution.


 * Constitutional amendment for political disposition of non-states is akin to that required for DC to vote for president. It has three electors forevermore, unrelated to its population as are the states’ Electoral College vote. (It is still a non-state part of the US, with territorial Member of Congress since the 1970s. -- Editors delight in mis-reporting I believe DC was not a possession of the US until 1970s; I only observe the people there were not represented in Congress, could not “participate in national councils” as the UN resolutions say for the post-WWII former-colonial, hence modern signage there for years, “DC, the last colony”, referring to its exclusion from the federal republic without representation.)


 * In the two smallest places understood to be a part of the United States in every respect, US states and territories by population, Wyoming has 500,000, DC 560,000 --- In the western Pacific there are about 250,000 in US organized territories: Guam, 150,000, American Samoa 57,000 Northern Marianas 70,000. ---In the Caribbean, Puerto Rico has 3,800,000 and Virgin Islands 100,000. Mostly on the continent, a territory did not qualify for a territory Member of Congress until 100,000 in US citizen population, regardless of other residents such as tribes or foreign nationals. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 23:55, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Alaska and Puerto Rico

 * On Alaska in this “unincorporated territory” article, it seems worth a note that Alaska had to be judicially “incorporated” for the provision of 12-man jury law -- not held to be a 'fundamental' right -- to apply there, and it was done so merely by observing Congress had made citizens and taxed them there at Rassmussen. Also, by district court observation upheld on circuit appeal, Congress has over time by degrees ‘incorporated’ Puerto Rico. --- But I will read into Burnett and Marshall, eds., “Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution”, before pursuing that again. Thanks for the research lead.


 * In the Puerto Rico case, Lawson and Sloan in the Boston Law Review, p. 1176, “Even if they do at some point, but Congress declines to grant it, there can be no question that Puerto Rico remains a prime candidate for statehood, a territory that has the ‘potentialities of statehood’.” – given its self government and there being 20 smaller states. In the 2008 Consejo v. Rullan case, “Contrary to other territories, Puerto Rico historically has formed part of the customs and immigration territory of the US.”[p.21]. “[Congress’] sequence of legislative actions from 1900 to present hs in fact incorporated the territory.” The territory has evolved from an unincorporated to an incorporated one.” [p.26,28] The legal scholars state in 2009 noted, “Regardless of how Puerto Rico looked in 1901 when the Insular Cases were decided, or in 1922, today, Puerto Rico seems to be the paradigm of an incorporated territory as modern jurisprudence understands that legal term of art.” So relevant to “unincorporated territories”, and their political incorporation, this article needs a note showing modern Puerto Rico is held by courts and scholars to be politically ‘incorporated’. [p.1176]. I do not rely on my own original research, speculation or synthesis, only direct quotes from reliable sources. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 23:11, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the most you can extrapolate from the caselaw is that the "incorporated/unincorporated" status of Puerto Rico is the subject of some disagreement. Unless there is a Supreme Court ruling or further congressional action, the situation will probably be unsettled for some time. And the likelihood of a Supreme Court ruling is low because most of the constitutional rights that incorporated status would bring, which were the original subject of the Insular Cases, have already been extended to Puerto Rico by statute, so the issues are unlikely to be litigated. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:37, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you. There is only litigation if there is harm done. A Miami minor's case was dismissed for that very reason. There is no harm because there is no second-class citizenship, lawyerly speculation and surmise is not a tort. But citizenship and nationality are not case law, they are positive law of statute, determined by the political branches of Congress and the Executive.
 * We should be able to distinguish between individual citizenship and corporate polities. Territories have never had the constitutional privileges of states until admission, in provisions such as voting for president. If previous politically incorporated territories did not vote for president, but had a territory Member of Congress, modern territories without vote for president with Member of Congress are not thereby judicially or WP "unincorporated" as a matter of citizenship or nationality. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 19:47, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Rullan ≠ Perez
Bkonrad in his unsourced POV haste and carelessness, fails to distinguish between a district court and a circuit court, between the names Rullan and Perez. Bkonrad 11:23, 14 June 2013‎. The error was in the court titles, not the link, the proper associated court names can be found on looking at each of the sources. His reverts seem to lack a certain collegiality here as elsewhere.

The passage of the unsourced Bkonrad revert, In November 2008 a district court judge ruled that a sequence of prior Congressional actions had had the cumulative effect of changing Puerto Rico's status to incorporated. [note] Consejo v. Rullan, p.28: "The Congressional incorporation of Puerto Rico throughout the past century has extended the entire Constitution to the island ...."''

Political incorporation by Congress was upheld in First U.S. Circuit Court in 2009, Puerto Rico was to be treated constitutionally and under law as a domestic state in regards to Department of Welfare administration of payments to U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico. [note] Consejo v. Perez. Viewed June 14, 2013.] TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 05:48, 16 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Ah yes, I see the cases are in fact two different cases, but neither is for the circuit court ruling. Both are rulings in the same case. It may be the more recent rulilng says something more than the first, but both are rulings of district court and both documents are titled as "CONSEJO DE SALUD PLAYA DE PONCE, et.al. Plaintiffs v. JOHNNY RULLAN, SECRETARY OF HEALTH OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO Defendant". Both documents are listed as case documents in Justia.com under the heading Consejo de Salud Playa Ponce v. Perez-Perdomo. It is misleading (at best) to call the later document a circuit court ruling and furthermore it does not say what you claim it says. older ≠ wiser 11:46, 16 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The lawfirm of Bkonrad and Older≠wiser, llc, ltd, lld, etc, reappears. Why not pick one name you can live with? A court ruling from a circuit court is a circuit court ruling. Not sure I should continue with your nonsense. You are not really so very confused by your snippet online search engine? Really?
 * The ruling says what it says, the formula under dispute is remanded to the lower court for reconsideration with updates from the Welfare Department to treat Puerto Rico as a congressionally incorporated domestic state, the lower court is upheld on two counts. The ruling in a US court case is found in the last paragraph which you persistently refuse to do -- read through any source whatever -- in your now unthinking, unsourced POV pushing. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 18:51, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I see no indication whatsoever that this is a circuit court ruling. The document contains references to a First Circuit ruling, but that is not this document. It is signed by the district court judge who appears to be acting in his authority district court judge following up on an action from the previous document. older ≠ wiser 19:03, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Here we go. Consejo v. Feliciano 2012, United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit. "For the reasons we have explained above, we affirm the district court's ruling on the Eleventh Amendment claims. We also affirm its ruling regarding the plaintiffs' request for debt indemnification relief. We reverse the district court's judgments regarding the formula used to calculate the Commonwealth's reimbursement obligations and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. All parties will bear their own costs. It is so ordered."

No collegial support and encouragement for a sourced online encyclopedia? You you refused to read the source when this was first posted, and you immediately replied five weeks ago at Talk:US: older ≠ wiser 10:48 am, 10 May 2013. The source was not wp:madeup, it was linked; it is now linked again. YOU both as 'Bkonrad' and 'older≠wiser' sock-puppet, still have no sources for your 100 year-old superseded POV regarding citizenship and nationality. There is from you, both as Bkonrad and as older≠wiser, only personal attack and non-sequitur nonsense. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 19:35, 16 June 2013 (UTC)


 * That is a different document than the one you provided as a reference in the article. The document you provided as a reference for what you described as the circuit court ruling was a district court ruling. When you are responsible for making elementary errors and then making accusations, well collegiality is not the first thought that comes to mind. older ≠ wiser 19:48, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * This is how it is done. One does not revert the ineptly written work of a previous editor, he collaboratively makes an edit to amend it. We had an unclearly written contribution with a bad link. I rewrote the passage more clearly and provided a working link to replace the advertisement provided at the .org site. More work is needed, but the first impulse is not to revert the information of interest to the unknown previous editor. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:24, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Gee, thanks for the lesson. Of course, when an editor has demonstrated a penchant for biased edits based on original research using incomplete or incorrect interpretations of your sources, it is often easier to simply remove incorrect details. older ≠ wiser 12:43, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Because I do no original research, I can at times reflect errors in sources, as I use sources. Alas, U.Penn Law let me down, but then that would be a source which can be assessed as to research and as to spelling edits. In the referenced article, you referred to the misspelling of the case Mankichi on the referenced Journal of International Law, page 316, which I inadvertently carried forward here. You still have no sources?

p.316. "Rasssmussen reaffirmed Makichi [tvh note: sic] not only as to the validity of the incorporation theory, but also, and more important as regards a central theme of this Article, as to what was the determining criterion for concluding whether a territory had been incorporated into the United States. Although Justices Harlan and Brown concurred in the outcome, Harlan continued to insist that the Constitution applied ex propio vigore to all territories whether incorporated or not." [tvh note: Which the modern Court has taken up relating fundamental rights to citizenship in the modern US territories ("unincorporated", judicially), prior to an explicit extension by Congress.-- As an historical matter, the fundamental rights of the constitution do not follow the flag, they follow citizenship.]

Were an editor to ignore reliable sources, he might in good faith fall into error. Have you not found any source to counter page 35 of the GAO report -- but your own insistence based on original research that the document ends on page 24 when I cite page 35 -- for the sake of your incorrect interpretation to a biased edit -- on the extent of constitutional protections extended to modern judicially "unincorporated" territories? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:38, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Everything you are arguing here is original research. You are drawing conclusions based on inferences from snippets out of many sources, none of which explicitly support the conclusion. older ≠ wiser 12:15, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Bkonrad-0uW. you are using page 24 history of, to deny the GAO report as of 1997 on page 35. Okay for this week, I'll try again later. There is no original research in direct quotes from reliable sources. Citing references is scholarship, in this case, linked online by page number. There is no conclusion on my part, only reporting information from a current GAO reliable source.
 * -- To maintain your unsupported conclusion, you must cling to the superseded page 24's historical account, although that change is documented in the one reliable source at page 35, where the modern Insular territory applications of the Constitution, is reported.
 * -- As usual, you see links in my posting, none in yours; --- because no reliable source says there are no constitutional protections permanently guaranteed US citizens in the modern territories --- still judicially "unincorporated" now for favorable federal taxes . TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 12:22, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * As usual, your links are mere deceptions as the links do not explicitly support the conclusions that you draw from them. As already discussed, page 35 does indeed enumerate a variety of basic rights that have been extended to the territories. However, the inference that therefore the principle of incorporation is no longer applicable is purely your own. older ≠ wiser 12:42, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The principle of incorporation IS applicable for discriminatory federal taxes and tariffs in territories. I do not say judicial "unincorporation" is NOT applicable for discriminatory taxes. Taxes are not citizenship. Citizenship is conveyed by positive law in the organic acts. The inference that inequitable tax regimes between states and territories vacates US citizenship in the territories is purely YOUR own. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:42, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

collegial linking
In a previous edit, note reference, Consejo de Salud Playa de Ponce v. Johnny Rullan, Secretary of Health of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, pages 6–7, The United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, retrieved 4 February 2010, gave us http://puertoricoadvancement.org/, a .org solicitation -- a use of WP articles which violates Foundation policy.

The link is now good at http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/puerto-rico/prdce/3:2006cv01260/58204/155/0.pdf?ts=1271110572. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:24, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

1905 ≠ 2005
Bkonrad in another unsourced POV article edit 11:06, 14 June 2013‎, demonstrates his ineffectual grasp of historical evolution in US constitutional practice. The reverted passage cites page 35 of a GAO report, Insular Territories, Application of the US Constitution. As in most reports to Congress from GAO and Library of Congress, an historical background is presented. Pushing a POV, he denies the existence of a page 35 in the report, as cited. -Bkonrad.

Bkonrad takes a quote from the superseded 1905 practice on page 24 out of context, ''“In the absence of such congressional action, however, only fundamental rights apply. The Insular Cases [make]… “unincorporated” territories, where fundamental rights apply as a matter of law, but other constitutional rights are not available."'' Constitutional rights follow congressionally made US citizenship --- the Supreme Court now extends privileges into territories independent of congressional action.

--note the convention of placing "unincorporated" in quotes when describing modern inhabited US territories, as a matter of clarity and style. By page 35 --- the citation which Bkonrad refuses to acknowledge --- other constitutional rights are available, for over two decades --- a documented fact that Bkonrad’s unsourced POV will not admit. See the sourced section “Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses”. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:40, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You just never stop making stuff up, do you? The 1905 definition is still in force and despite being repeatedly asked you have never provided any authoritative source (i.e. Congress or a Supreme Court ruling) that has invalidated it. You point to a section that goes piecemeal through the various fundamental rights that have been extended to individual territories to imagine an overly broad conclusion that suits your POV. older ≠ wiser 11:57, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The 1905 allowance for discriminatory tax regime is still good law. Only now 100 years later, instead of protective tariff against the territories, federal taxes favor low-income territories with advantages over states. The advantages are so substantial that scholars Lawson and Sloane use them to explain Puerto Rican preference for Commonwealth over statehood, even though it would enter as a state larger than 20 others.
 * Nationality and citizenship is determined by the political branches, Congress and Executive, so say the Insular Cases themselves. There is no court ruling to enact statutes in the US. You misunderstand fundamentals of US government, again. What you say may be true somewhere, but you have no sources, so there is no way to tell, so its just your unsourced POV.
 * You persist in authoritatively spouting nonsense. Congress enacts statutory law in the US, the "positive law" of citizenship, not Supreme Court cases overturning the Supreme Court. The generalization is from the GAO -- not me, you will not read sources -- or you would not persist in non-sequitur nonsense. You have no source for your POV. We see scholarship that no English speaking country has determined nationality by court interpretation for 100 hundred years. Your POV is irrelevant by a century here in an English-speaking country, according to scholars in reliable sources including law journals. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 19:09, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * And still no authoritative source that explicitly supports your long and winding road argument. older ≠ wiser 19:50, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * In contrast to your Bkonrad sockpuppet older≠wiser unsourced POV, we have:
 * “State” includes [DC], Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands (MP). [p.22-23]. This definition is reiterated throughout US Code. You have no restrictive example. That is definitive to include all five organized territories.
 * Executive Order, includes all five organized inhabited territories, that is definitive.
 * The Census Department defines "native-born American" as anyone born in the states, "Puerto Rico, or a U.S. Island Area... U.S. Island Areas include Guam, Am. Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and... the Northern Mariana Islands." That is definitive.
 * Our political science scholar cited in law review articles, Sparrow says p.232, territories are a part of a federal nation-state; today the U.S. includes US territories in the Caribbean and Pacific, a federal district and 50 states. That is definitive.
 * You have no sources, only personal attacks and non-sequitur nonsense proclaiming that the evidence before you is not. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 22:18, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You have no idea what a sockpuppet is, do you? But yet I'm not surprised that you attempt to use it to slander. Typical.
 * Re your first bullet -- precisely the point -- wherever it is relevant, the law takes care to specify that the law applies to states and territories. There is no blanket definition that makes all laws equally applicable to states and territories.
 * Re, second bullet. Yet another example of the jurisdiction being specifically extended to the territories rather than having it apply by some default definition.
 * Re third bullet -- totally irrelevant. How the census counts native born citixens has no relevance whatsoever to determining the political status of the territories.
 * Re fourth bullet -- remind me again when arguments made unelected scholars are able to determine what the political status of the territories when Congress and the courts have left the matter muddled?
 * You have no sources that actually say what you claim they say. older ≠ wiser 23:14, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Bkonrad-ouw, point one defining US Code use of "state" wherever it appears to include territories, you charmingly reply they do not apply anywhere -- only in the definition section? But the point of the definition is to include territories everywhere equally in the US Code where the word "state" appears-- unless excepted -- and you have not found a single exception.

The temporary conditions in 1905 to allow possessions without citizens and governance without constitutional protections have been resolved in Congressional statute and Supreme Court decisions. 1905 is now only in your made-up America, your disruption here is "I can't hear you" at its most juvenile. I placed an edit sourcing page 35 showing constitutional rights apply in US territories. You reverted it, writing falsely they do not -- using wording from a historic account 100 years old from page 24, without changing the citation-- a second act of intellectual dishonesty. Your unethical edit is compounded by unclear thought displayed in this thread.

You do not yet understand from the GAO linked source the Insular Territory – application of the US Constitution, page 35, ''“Among the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are due process and equal protection. Both rights apply to the five larger insular areas.”'' Sources need not be elected officials for use in the article as you imply, and the judges are not elected to the US federal bench -- those you believe to override the last sixty years of Congressional statutes enabling citizenship and extending increasing protections and self-government, --you impeach your own chosen authority in mindless non-sequitur nonsense.

You have no counter source, no quotes, --- only muddled denial of WP policy to use sources for articles, your own unsourced POV, and personal attacks. I'll give it a couple of days to see if there are any counter sources we need to incorporate besides the sourced page 35 that describes the current state of constitutional provisions --- as they apply to the US territories which are the subject of this article. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:02, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Nothing new here. Still nothing but you making inferences based on snippets here and there. Still no authoritative source saying the concept of incorporation is no longer applicable to current territories. older ≠ wiser 11:30, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Of course judicial "unincorporation" is applicable for federal taxes, only now instead of harming territories, 100 years later, the differences now give them advantages over states according to Lawson and Sloane.
 * But there is no "unincorporation" found in Congressional statute relative to constitutional provisions, and federal courts extend additional constitutional provisions where Congress has made citizens in the five inhabited US territories.
 * 1997 GAO report, p.35, is an authoritative source for the extent of constitutional provisions in the present day "unincorporated" territories. Another two days pass, still no counter-source to the GAO report that needs to be included in this article's narrative relative to constitutional provisions in US territories? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:37, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * There is nothing to counter. You are making inferences that are not explicitly supported by the sources you cite. You still have nothing but an long and winding string of original research. older ≠ wiser 12:13, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Some of the bickering here, like much of the real-world discussion of the territories' status generally, has become almost metaphysical, but there are still numerous respects in which the territories' unincorporated status continues to allow disparate treatment with actual consequences. The lower levels of federal welfare support in Puerto Rico are one example, and the different customs rules for the Virgin Islands and Guam are another. The books by Stanley Laughlin ("The Law of United States Territories") and Gerald Liebowitz ("Defining Status) describe all of this exhaustively. Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:04, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * So far, Burnett and Marshall's introductory essay as captured in part at Amazon, Foreign in a domestic sense (my copy is in the mail) does much to reassure and calm the bickering spirit among us. Thank you, Newyorkbrad. The anthology's essays are paired to examine several facets of each element studied.
 * According to Burnett, there is inconclusive scholarship supporting Bkonrad -- just nothing for his dismissive personal attacks; I wonder why he does not appeal to the scholarship as you did? p.19: reflects my understanding from my previously cited sources: "Supporters of the compact theory insist that the adoption of the Constitution of Puerto Rico was itself a sovereign act of the people of Puerto Rico and, as such, that it effected a transfer of sovereignty from Congress which Congress may not rescind."


 * "This debate continues unabated." -- among scholars -- So the issues surrounding Burnett's judicially "unincorporated" colonialism requires a nuanced narrative to write in both sourced views, rather than summarily reverting entries without sourcing --- if we were to take Foreign in a domestic sense as our guide for the WP article, as Newyorkbrad suggested, or did he? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:57, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
 * TheVirginiaHistorian, the compact theory does not mean that PR has been incorporated into the U.S., merely that the U.S. Congress may not revoke its constitution, anymore than it can revoke the constitutions of its associated states of the Marshall Islands, Micronesia or Palau. TFD (talk) 20:30, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Insular cases described
Describing the Insular Cases, article text now reads,

In the Mankichi case, the Court ruled that all provisions did not apply in the city of Honolulu. A divided petit jury found Mankichi guilty of murder by a majority, the Court ruled for his execution. Said our source, Judge Torruella, in U.Penn’s International Law Review, p.314, ''“The Court concluded that Hawaii was not incorporated into the United States until 1900, when U.S. citizenship was granted to its inhabitants. Because Mankichi's charge and trial preceded that date, the Court ruled that, pursuant to Downes, the Constitution did not provide Mankichi with the protections to which he claimed to be entitled."''

It is hardly “tangential” to note how the generalization does NOT apply in the case of murder trial, especially since the exception is noted in the source on page 314. Proposed language at the end of the passage: TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:34, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry but I am not following your point here at all. In any event, wasn't any ambiguity in the early Insular Cases (created in part by the fractured nature of the Justices' voting) resolved by the time of Balzac v. Porto Rico a few years later? Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:09, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * This seems tangential minutae about the process. The un-amended text is only giving a very general overview of the difference between incorporated and unincorporated with reference to the totality of the insular cases. This is picking out a detail from one of the cases that came during the few years between annexation in July 1898 with the Newlands Resolution and the Hawaiian Organic Act in April 1900. Without going into additional detail to explain the situation, this is a tangential point for the purposes of the present text. older ≠ wiser 12:09, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

The article paragraph begins supposing constitutional provisions entirely apply to judicially “incorporated” territory, but they did not in the case of Hawaii Territory. The Balzac case does not pertain to Hawaii, but it did also deny a jury trial, in 1922 to an “unincorporated” territory.

Looking at our Torruella source, [page 286, Note 10]: Balzac v. Porto Rico, 258 U.S. 298 (1922) (holding that because Puerto Rico had not been incorporated into the United States, a U.S. citizen living in Puerto Rico did not have the right to trial by jury)." -- Just as Mankichi in “incorporated” Hawaii Territory accused of murder. [page 324]: Balzac was an editor who indirectly criticized the US presidentially appointed Puerto Rican governor twice. [page 325]: Torruella states: “In language that would lead to perpetual ad hoc litigation in an attempt to define what rights attached to the U.S. citizens residing in Puerto Rico,” Taft referred to undefined “certain fundamental personal rights” such as due process, which WP editor Bkonrad-OuW denies here without a source.

But what is the outcome over time for use in an encyclopedia article including the present? Scholars could agree as of 2009 in the Boston College Law Review,p.53, “Regardless of how Puerto Rico looked in 1901 when the Insular Cases were decided, or in 1922 [at the Balzac case], today, Puerto Rico seems to be the paradigm of an incorporated territory as modern jurisprudence understands that legal term of art.” – which includes constitutional protections as those two legal scholars understand them.

As judicially "incorporated" territory may not have constitutional protections, and judicially "unincorporated" territory may, --- it follows that "unincorporated" is a judicial construct which applies today as good law insofar as it pertains to discriminatory federal tax regimes, whether harming them 100 years ago, or favoring US territories today. I’ll come back to this in a couple weeks. Thanks for your patience in advance. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:29, 21 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Why do you claim Hawaii was incorporated during the events concerning the Manchiki case? Incorporation did not occur until the organic act according to the case ruling (Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 US 197 - Supreme Court 1903):


 * ''Under the conditions named in this resolution [the Newlands Resolution] the Hawaiian Islands remained under the name of the "Republic of Hawaii" until June 14, 1900, when they were formally incorporated by act of Congress under the name of the "Territory of Hawaii." 31 Stat. 141. By this act the Constitution was formally extended to these islands, sec. 5, and special provisions made for empanelling grand juries and for unanimous verdicts of petty juries. Sec. 83.


 * And once again, remind me how legal scholars have the authority to define applicability of laws. They have opinions, and their opinions and analyses may carry some weight, but they remain opinions and analyses until confirmed by bodies with authority. And how is any of this not tangential details to providing a general overview? older ≠ wiser 14:50, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Bkonrad-0uw, I'm still working through a source, if you will pardon the expression, "Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution" recommended by an editor who uses sources. Collaborative work takes the work of reading one another's sources.
 * a) According to the judicial "incorporation doctrine", Hawaii is said to be incorporated at treaty of acquisition when the treaty explicitly "incorporates" the territory into the US as the treaty of annexation did for Alaska and Hawaii Territory -- as referred to in the article as written, so it cannot be tangential as YOU claim -- per me and the previous editor who wrote the passage.
 * b) the Court held that trial for murder done before 1900 was not protected by constitutional provision for a grand jury at murder trial. Do you now have a reference to show incorporation is at Congressional organic act, and NOT treaty explicitly making "incorporation"? It must be stated very directly for the skeptical. Please provide it, it will collaboratively help me in discussion elsewhere; I am interested to see that we seem to be agreed on this point of congressional organic act and citizenship incorporating a place versus judicial fiat. Have you ever taken a reading in US history or government at university?


 * Using scholars for sources versus our own interpretation of primary documents, is how editors avoid wp:original research. You still have no scholars, but you imagine my linked, cited references are original research. You can only refute the GAO study by finding an isolated historical snippet therein supporting your POV on page 24, when the report conclusion says there are constitutional protections on page 35. As you continue to be of no use for sources, I will return to reading Burnett and Marshall. Please stop misstating my position, and find some source for yours -- I will actually read it past the first-hit-global-document-term-search which seems to be your preferred method of operation. Thanks in advance. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:25, 22 June 2013 (UTC)


 * When you take snippets from here and there and use them to draw conclusions that are not explicitly supported by any of the sources, that is the definition of WP:SYNTHESIS, one form of original research. Your repetitive misuse of the GAO report seems to be typical.


 * Where is it said that Hawaii was incorporated by the Newlands Resolutions? The Manchiki case indicates rather clearly that incorporation did not occur until the organic act. It might help if you did actually read the relevant source materials. Unless you can provide clearer references to sources that say explicitly say otherwise, this detail is tangential. And if it is actually worth noting, it needs to be more clearly contextualized and explained than was done with your edit. older ≠ wiser 15:47, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

So we are agreed the Mankichi case shows political incorporation by organic act and citizenship. And you have no answer as to why we should not use reliable sources as authority. All opinions are not equal. If you cannot find a scholar to say the territories are not in the US, or their citizenship is second class, then the view cannot be sustained on Wikipedia. When you do, we can incorporate into the narrative that some scholars include judicially unincorporated territories as under fundamental constitutional protections associated with US citizenship, and others do not.

My use of the GAO report is to use direct quotes which you cannot yet find to exclude it. On page 24, “The Constitution does not apply in its entirety to territories solely by virtue of the fact that those territories have come under the possession and control of the United States.” On page 9, “Citizenship is derived either from the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution… or from a specific statute that confers citizenship on the inhabitants of an area that, although not a state, is under the sovereignty of the United States. Such legislation has been enacted for Puerto Rico (8 U.S.C. § 1402); the Virgin Islands (8 U.S.C. § 1406); Guam (8 U.S.C. § 1407); and the CNMI (sec. 303 of the Covenant, as approved by the Congress). On page 35. “Among the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are due process and equal protection. Both rights apply to the five larger insular areas.”

That is not synthesis, -- that is what it says. Your snippet relating to the superseded judicial unincorporation is just that, superseded relative to fundamental rights and self-government—but not in cases of discriminatory federal tax regimes under the Uniformity Clause, which you seem to prize so highly, it is certainly still in effect, -- only now to favor territory taxes relative to states for business creation. Other sources do confirm the GAO report. But to synthesize, one must assert something unsaid by the sources, but I have not done that -- a legal scholar says A-C a political scientist says B-C and I write A-B-C as referenced. I do not say D as synthesis; when all reliable sources say the same thing, it reinforces the point of information to be added into the article.

The context is the lead topic sentence of the paragraph, followed by the reference to Alaska and Hawaii earlier in the paragraph. Several scholars believe the Insular Cases inconsistent due to Alaska and Hawaii holdings, that is why the existing paragraph begins to address the subject, yet without pointing out the inconsistencies in the judicial doctrine, which my contribution in this case, begins to address. Are you reading the source, "Foreign in a domestic sense" provided a third party, so that we can have a more common-ground understanding/vocabulary? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 18:32, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * sources You will note some of our editors have difficulty staying current with law in force, due to their use of digests and online summaries. Relative to the current paragraph under discussion, in the GAO report on application of the Constitution, Page 31: "The State Department takes the position that the citizenship of Puerto Rico provision of the Foraker Act has no legal effect today, having been superseded by later law." Of course, some Wikipedians deny the legitimacy of the USG and all of its departments, including Congress as they might apply to US territories as we have seen argued at other venues, but that is not the mainstream scholarship adopted at WP.


 * Articles in our third party 2001 reference, "Foreign in a domestic sense", include contributions from previous sources Sanford Levinson, Juan Torruella and Richard Thornburgh. Though Torruella and Thornburgh alike believe American jurisprudence needs to make itself consistent at court, Levison and Bartholomew Sparrow look at the political branches of Congress and Executive to continue advances towards greater equity and uniformity throughout the US federal republic, states, district and territories. The article, "Constitutionalism and Individual Rights" by Gerald L. Neuman seems promising. We shall see. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 19:02, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I agreed with nothing regarding citizenship. The Manchiki case describes incorporation via the Organic Act. And you still have no single authoritative source that explicitly supports your position. That is the only answer necessary for your twisty-turny chain of inferences. older ≠ wiser 22:41, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I must say, as I've said earlier on this page, that some of the issues being argued about here are almost metaphysical or don't really affect the substance of the issues. Foraker Act citizenship is among these. That Act created a status of "citizens of Porto Rico". Those citizens of Puerto Rico were not citizens of the United States; U.S. citizenship came under the Jones Act of 1917, 17 years later. During the 1990s, a Puerto Rican independence activist, Juan Mari Bras, renounced his U.S. citizenship but claimed to still be a citizen of Puerto Rico, and the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico upheld his claim, based in part on the suggestion that some vestige of separate Puerto Rico citizenship might survive. This position has not been followed by the federal courts or by the United States government, and raises primarily a theoretical issue rather than having a practical impact on the political or legal status of Puerto Rico. It also requires emphasis that large numbers of commenters on all sides of these issues are influenced by their own opinions on the political, legal and social aspects of the status question. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Well yes, interpreting judicial unincorporation for discriminatory taxes is difficult to relate to equal citizenship, whereas political incorporation is by organic law of self government, representation in Congress, and citizenship. In this case Bkonrad-0uw previously has not allowed for nationality to be defined by a citizenship of positive law, but insists on a return to judge-made rules of nationality. The judicial terms of "incorporation theory" are confused in a way the positive law of Congressional statute is not. The statutory evolution over time has changed the application of the constitution -- that is the subject of the GAO report. Constitutional status initially ascribed in the Insular Cases, was a) possession without citizenship, b) governance without constitution and c) protective (sugar) tariffs for Louisiana against that grown in PR, GM and PI.

I would have the article to reflect scholarship without the misdirection as the article now reads. The paragraph subject is "unincorporated territories", but on page 24 refers to Insular Cases of 1905 -- “Under the Insular Cases and subsequent decisions,… fundamental rights apply as a matter of law, but other constitutional rights are not available.” The GAO report, having laid out the history -- and its changes since then -- in some detail, -- concludes on page 35 that both Congress and Courts extend consitutional rights today related to citizenship.

''“Due process and equal protection [,] both rights apply to the five larger insular areas… Congress, through legislation, has explicitly extended due process and equal protection rights to the Virgin Islands. In 1976, the Supeme Court held that residents of Puerto Rico are accorded the protections of …due process clause”'' of the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendment. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:56, 26 June 2013 (UTC)


 * You really should check your facts before spewing more speculative BS. The 1997 GAO report unambiguously states in the summary Results in Brief section on page 6: . that 1991 GAO report  unambiguously stated:  Page 35 of the 1997 GAO report (which you persist in misinterpreting) provides an analysis of how the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses have been extended to the territories. It does not make the blanket conclusion that the Constitution has been extended in its entirety to the territories. older ≠ wiser 14:42, 26 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The subject is “unincorporated” territories in the US today, not your idée fixe “Insular Cases” today, tomorrow, forever, "Insular Cases". Worse than BS -- you persist in defending your unethical POV twisting of the GAO report which shows, -- which is my point.


 * The text as it reads now is your POV miscast, wrongly cited, misinterpretation which asserts: anywhere among US judicially "unincorporated" territories – when they are and have been by Congress and Courts for half a century – which even YOU must half-truth restate for a cover of credibility -- even in your characteristically flailing ad hominem ranting in the last post.


 * The constitution in its entirety --- provision for state presidential electors, prosecuting criminals twice for the same crime, state and federal as in the Rodney King atrocity --- will not be extended to territories until they are states. Territories are not states -- even without your Insular Cases, and their 'good law'-discriminatory federal tax regimes will persist to protect your Louisiana sugar and now the territorial welfare subsidies, never fear. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:58, 28 June 2013 (UTC)


 * As usual, just more long-winded reinterpretations to contradict what is plainly stated in the GAO reports. older ≠ wiser 11:14, 28 June 2013 (UTC)


 * This edit seems extremely, unnecessarily hostile. You should stop taking this so personally. (Yes, I know I'm guilty of that too, but then again, that's why I disengaged) --Golbez (talk) 13:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)


 * How do we stop the unethical and dishonest who miscast 1991 US as 1901 US, from disrupting a wikipage with a BIG LIE -- plainly and unambiguously misstating a historical evolution as a present denial of Due Process and Equal Protection in US territories in the lede of this article --- as it once existed under the Insular Cases in 1905, but which does no longer by 1995 -- constitutional protections in US territories cannot be represented on WP as unchanging 1905, 1995, forever, -- it simply is not so. No one now goes to jail for nine years in any US territory for obliquely criticizing a US president-appointed territorial governor as in 1922; Puerto Ricans elect their own governor since 1957. There are too many non-sequiturs to counter in one post, I would be accused of making a winding response were I to address the cloud of confusion. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 19:45, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Since the insular cases, the Supreme Court has decided that the U.S. government cannot legally violate fundamental rights in any area under its control, whether inside the US or outside. The previous administration had set up a prison in Guantanamo Bay precisely in order to hold people without due process of law.  TFD (talk) 20:37, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * @TVH, so let's get this straight. There is a very plainly stated definition of "unincorporated" in the GAO report as well as in other government sources. The GAO report, as well as other goverment sources plainly states the inhabited territories are unincorporated. And yet, due to your superior intellect, you have determined that this plain meaning is not in fact the TRUTH. Instead, only by following a long and winding chain of inferences can we arrive at what TVH feels is true. And along the way he derides those who support the plainly stated language of the GAO report as well as other government information as "unethical" and "dishonest". How amusing. older ≠ wiser 14:10, 1 July 2013 (UTC)


 * TVH, as I stated above, due process today extends to all areas under the jurisdiction of the US government, including Guantanamo Bay, which you agree is not part of the U.S. In addition, Congress may and has extended by legislation rights that exist in the United States.  It may even be as argued in the compact theory that Congress has abdicated its authority to change PR's constitution.  And unlike incorporated territories, the populated unincorporated territories retain the right to self-determination.  TFD (talk) 21:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Inhabited / Uninhabited
Why is Wake Island listed as inhabited with a population of 120, whereas Midway Atoll is listed as uninhabited? As far as I know, both of them don't have a permanent population, and both are permanently stationed by the military. --50.193.52.113 (talk) 22:05, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

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Incorporation only of people?
The "Overview" ends with the sentence: "Here we see that the act of incorporation is on the people of the territory, not on the territory per se, by extending the privileges and immunities clause of the Constitution to them." I cannot see that this follows from what has been said before, which seems rather to suggest the opposite. It would also be an extraordinary situation, which I haven't come across in any other country. If only the people were to be incorporated, whose territory would it be? I just read this article to inform myself about Puerto Rico after the recent hurricane and raise this for consideration by those able to clarify. Wikiain (talk) 03:34, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * You are right and I have removed it. TFD (talk) 03:46, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands
The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands is incorrectly listed as a former unincorporated territory of the United States and I will remove it. It was administered by the U.S. on behalf of the UN. TFD (talk) 22:47, 27 October 2017 (UTC)