1. United States
2. Mass.
3. Letter

Pass legislation granting statehood to U.S. territories and end the constitutional limbo that millions of Americans live in today. People born in Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands hold U.S. citizenship only because Congress chose to grant it by statute. That means Congress could take it away. That is not a constitutional guarantee. It is legislative grace, and it is not good enough for people who serve in the U.S. military, pay federal taxes, and have called this country home for generations. The Insular Cases, which created this two-tiered system, were built on explicit racial bias. Justice Gorsuch called their foundation "rotten." Justice Sotomayor agreed it is "past time to acknowledge the gravity" of that error. Statehood is the clearest path to making constitutional rights permanent for territory residents, and it is long overdue.