Gonzales v. Williams

1. Does the case grant American citizenship to people living in Puerto Rico? Does it deny it? Does it make a suggestion as to where the power to create such citizenship resides? What was the position of the Puerto Rican amicus? 

2. What was the position of the executive branch on the ability of Puerto Ricans to move to the United States and live here? Is the court saying Congress could never impose alien status on persons living in some acquired or conquered territory (Greenland, for example) or just that it did not do so in this instance? 

3. Puerto Ricans were ultimately made (confirmed as?) United States citizens in the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917 (not to be confused with the Jones Act). But where does Congress get the power to create citizenship beyond birthright citizenship under the 14th amendment? Or were the Puerto Ricans already citizens pursuant to the first sentence of the 14th amendment? But if that's the case then how can Gonzales v. Williams decline to decide the matter? We'll see Congressional recognition/creation of citizenship recpitulated when it comes to Native Americans. 

4. Section 2 of the Jones-Shafroth Act gives Puerto Ricans rights against the Puerto Rican government though not against the United States government. An examination of that section shows it to be a fascinating cousin of the American Bill of Rights containing, for example, prohibitions laws abridging the freedom of speech and prohibitions on ex post facto laws or bills of attainder. But it's interesting to study the differences between the two bills of rights. It's a reflection perhaps on what the United States thought inapplicable to Puerto Ricans and what, perhaps, Congress was willing to grant the people even when it could not gain the requisite majority in Congress or 3/4 of the states to give to the people at large. For example, the President can suspend habeas corpus in Puerto Rico even though it supposedly takes Congress to do so in the continental US. There is a prohibition not spelled out in the US Constitution, perhaps directed at the Catholic Church, prohibiting any public money or property from ever be appropriated, ... donated, used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, sectarian institution or association, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary as such, or for charitable, industrial, educational, or benevolent purposes to any person, corporation, or community not under the absolute control of Porto Rico."  There are also constitutional rights to an eight hour work day and prohibitions on child labor that the Congress had not found the constitutional power to enact in the rest of the United States.