Puerto Rico

     Puerto Rico is a part of the United States of America. Puerto Ricans are American citizens, not foreigners.  Puerto Rico is not one of the fifty states, but a commonwealth. The Puerto Ricans have been asked to decide if they would like to be the fifty-first American state more than once in the past few decades. They put the motion to a plebiscite--a popular vote on the issue--and it was turned down. The Puerto Ricans voted to retain their commonwealth status, instead of becoming one of the United States, or an independent nation. Many Americans would like to see Puerto Rico, and America's other overseas possessions, become either states of the United States or independent nations. Some U.S. citizens don't like the idea of having territorial possessions, where people don't really have the same rights as the rest of us. Citizens of territorial possessions have no representatives in Congress, for example.
     Puerto Ricans have voted that they like the way things are arranged, and don't really want them changed.
     Puerto Ricans are American citizens, and may travel to the United States in the same way that the rest of us may travel from state to state. Americans may visit Puerto Rico without ( politically ) leaving the United States, so they won't need a visa or a passport.