First the gist. US territorial possessions such as the USVI, Guam or Puerto Rico are unincorporated in the union. The total population of these territories and possessions weighs in at over 4 million. All residents of the territories are full US citizens in all respects save the right to vote in federal elections. They have no say in who becomes POTUS nor are they adequately represented in Congress, a fate they share with the residents of D.C.
A top U.S. district court judge in the Virgin Islands has asked a higher court to consider the arguments of a former federal marshal who claimed in 1999 that Virgin Islanders are being denied full recognition as United States citizens. One Source
What is surprising here is that the case has been docketed and Ballantine received a number. This could indicate that the appelate court will hear the case or remand it to the lower USVI district court.
Follow me over the hedge...
Chief Justice Raymond Finch recently wrote to Judge Anthony Scirica, chief of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, asking him to appoint a judge to consider the legal arguments filed by Krim Ballentine, retired deputy U.S. marshal in 1999. In his case Ballentine argued that Virgin Islanders are being denied the right to vote for the president of the United States and to have a voting member of Congress based on antiquated laws that allowed the country to colonize insular territories.
The case, Ballentine vs. United States, claims that at the time the then-Danish Virgin Islands was purchased by the U.S. government, the people were transferred to the government along with the real estate and were never formally granted self-determination. His case was given an informal airing in court in March 2002, when a student from Yale Law School argued before former District Judge Thomas Moore as part of her work with the Allard K.Lowenstein International Human Rights Law Clinic. (See Judge to Rule on Bid to Throw out Rights Case.)
At that time the student, Elizabeth Brundige, argued that "the United States is in violation of its international law obligations in respect to its relationship with Virgin Islands."
Her arguments, formed in collaboration with Jim Silk, executive director of the Lowenstein clinic, were posted on the Yale Law School Web site. In that posting, the authors wrote that if the courts decide in favor of Ballentine, "It could affect the status of other U.S. territories, such as Guam, American Samoa and Puerto Rico."
Now if the federally disenfranchised US citizens of the territories were granted full federal rights we would see an influx of the Democratic base that could change the face of US politics.
"What I'm asking is one simple question," Ballentine said Thursday. "Either I'm property, as demonstrated under the U.S. Constitution, where Congress has a right to legislate my lifestyle and why I am -- or I'm a citizen of the United States, which is strictly out of the control of Congress, as a born natural citizen."
