We are, as a matter of fact, the world's last colony with more than 1 million (1,000,000) inhabitants.

This Congress must address the issue and consider enacting a bill to provide for the admission of Puerto Rico as a state.

The current economic crisis is a cruel manifestation that territorial status is not a sustainable model for the political economy of America's last large and populous territory.

That is why a 54 percent majority voted to end the current status in the plebiscite of 2012.

Yet, instead of open democratic self-determination, the ideological faction clinging to the status quo insists on obstructing the will of the people.

The 3.5 million U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico get it. That is why a 54 percent majority voted to end the current status in the plebiscite of 2012.

Yet, here we are in 2015, and instead of open democratic self-determination, the ideological faction clinging to the status quo insists on obstructing the will of the people as so clearly expressed in the 2012 plebiscite.

I fully support this bill.

The Federal Government cannot say that we "remain, as it is today, subject to the Territory Clause of the U.S. Constitution" in order to deny Puerto Rico the powers to solve our economic and social crisis, and now turn around and say they…

Not a single territory of the 37 admitted to the Union were deprived of equal economic opportunities and benefits for as long as we have.

Puerto Rican Americans have more than earned their right to equal participation in our Nation's democratic process.