Why are residents of the island commonwealth denied certain federal benefits that are given to U.S. citizens nearly everywhere else? The justices have decided to take up that question.

By Matt Ford @ newrepublic.com, March 2

In 2013, Jose Luis Vaello-Madero moved back to Puerto Rico. He had lived and worked in New York since 1985. His wife had already moved back to the island for medical reasons; now he would join her there to help take care of her. By then, he had developed health problems as well. And so, like millions of other Americans, he sought and received benefits under the Supplemental Security Income program that his taxes had helped fund over the years.

 If Vaello-Madero had moved to a remote cabin in Alaska or bought a houseboat in Florida, he would have been able to continue collecting SSI without a problem. But Congress had only authorized the SSI program in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Northern Mariana Islands. When the Social Security Administration learned, three years later, that Vaello-Madero was still receiving payments inside Puerto Rico, it stopped disbursing them. Then the agency sued him to recover the $28,081 he had already received.

The justices agreed on Monday to hear the case at the urging of the Justice Department. If it rules in favor of Vaello-Madero, it could open up multiple nationwide benefits programs to the island’s three million residents, who are citizens of the United States. If the court sides with the Justice Department, however, the court could also take the opportunity to further entrench the colonial-era rulings that keep Puerto Ricans in what the commonwealth described to the court as a “second-class citizenship not supported in the Constitution.” [....]