Spain Considers Offering Puerto Ricans Citizenship

M.A. Dworkin

San Juan - Spain is considering a historic proposal that would allow Puerto Ricans with ancestors born in Spanish-controlled  Puerto Rico before 1898 to reclaim Spanish - and by extension, European Union - citizenship, as a form of “reparative justice.”

While not yet official law, the initiative, referred to as “Ley de Nacionalidad Reparativa,” aims to restore nationality lost 127 years ago after the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which was signed by the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain. The Treaty marked the official end of the Spanish American War. Under it, Spain relinquished all claims of sovereignty over the West Indies archipelagos and the islands of Cuba, and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean, along with Guam and other islands in the Western Pacific.

The Treaty of Paris marked the end of the Spanish Empire. It signaled the beginning of the U.S. as a major world power. 

Modeled after Spain’s 2015 reparative citizenship law for Sephardic descendants, the initiative argues that Puerto Ricans were unjustly stripped of their nationality, through no fault of their own, after Spain ceded the island to the United States. For many Boricuas, this is not about nostalgia, it is about identity, dignity, and repairing a rupture created by colonial transfer.

Led by legal experts and advocacy groups, the proposal has sparked widespread excitement across the island of Puerto Rico, the U.S, Virgin Islands, specifically St. Croix with its large Puerto Rican population, and the Caribbean diaspora. It affirms what Puerto Ricans have preserved for more than a century: language, culture, faith, and a deep connection to the Hispanic world despite forced U.S. citizenship and failed assimilation policies. 

Long before 1917, Puerto Rico’s elected leaders rejected U.S. citizenship and demanded independence. That demand was ignored, yet Puerto Ricans were later drafted into war, all while remaining politically unequal - unable to vote for President or elect full congressional representation.

In 1914, Puerto Rico’s democratically elected House of Delegates unanimously rejected U.S. citizenship and demanded independence. However, the U.S. government ignored Puerto Rico’s demands. Three years later, Congress imposed U.S. citizenship on Puerto Ricans so they could be drafted into World War I. Since then, Puerto Ricans have fought and died in every U.S. war, yet they basically remain second-class citizens. 

Currently, Puerto Ricans are already considered Ibero-American nationals, allowing them to apply for Spanish citizenship after only two years of legal residence in Spain.

IF enacted, the law would offer more mobility across Europe. It would expose a profound truth Washington has long avoided: Puerto Rico’s identity has never been fully American. Many believe that Puerto Ricans in favor of the proposal are people eager to reconnect with Spain and the wider Hispanic world and are not expressing a desire for U.S. Statehood - they are signaling a longing for sovereignty, respect, and equal standing among nations. This moment forces an uncomfortable question for the United States and a clear message from Puerto Rico: Our future is not annexation, but self-determination.

Some sources indicate the proposal is part of an ongoing conversation regarding historical, postcolonial, and legal ties rather than an immediately impending finalized policy. 

Nevertheless, it is certainly a wake-up call for U.S. policymakers, who have for decades ignored and overlooked Puerto Rican identity, to realize that perhaps it is time to either allow the island of over 3 million population to obtain statehood or once and for all let Puerto Rico go its own way.