• Call for End to Insular Cases: Teri Helenese, representing the U.S. Virgin Islands, is urging U.S. federal lawmakers to dismantle the legal framework of the Insular Cases, which deny full democratic rights to citizens in U.S. territories.
• Denial of Full Citizenship Rights: Over 3.6 million U.S. citizens in territories (a majority being people of color) lack full voting rights in presidential elections, full congressional representation, and equal treatment under federal law due to these century-old Supreme Court rulings.
• Veterans’ Sacrifices Highlighted: The call for justice is particularly poignant on Memorial Day, as veterans from the territories have fought for U.S. democratic ideals globally while being denied these same rights at home.
• Advocacy for Systemic Change: There is an active movement, with Helenese as a key voice, seeking legislative and judicial remedies to overturn the Insular Cases and ensure equal constitutional protections for all Americans.

On Memorial Day, Teri Helenese, the U.S. Virgin Islands’ Director of State-Federal Relations and Washington Representative, issued a powerful call for federal lawmakers to end the colonial framework that denies full democratic rights to U.S. citizens in territories. While honoring all U.S. veterans, Helenese specifically highlighted the sacrifices of Virgin Islands veterans and the systemic inequities they and their communities have faced for over a century due to the Insular Cases. These early 20th-century Supreme Court rulings established a system of “second-class citizenship” for residents of U.S. territories, a framework Justice Neil Gorsuch has labeled “American colonialism.”

Over 3.6 million Americans, predominantly people of color, reside in these territories (like Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) and are denied full constitutional protections, including voting rights in presidential elections, full congressional representation, and equal treatment under federal law. Helenese, a prominent national voice in the movement to overturn the Insular Cases, is actively working with Congress to pass legislation that rejects the racist foundations and ongoing impact of these decisions.

She argues that the U.S. cannot be a true bastion of democracy while denying fundamental rights to millions of its own citizens, particularly when territorial veterans have fought and died defending those same democratic ideals abroad. Helenese continues to advocate for legislative and judicial actions to rectify these structural injustices and ensure that constitutional rights and freedoms are extended to all Americans, irrespective of their place of residence within U.S. jurisdiction.