•HRES 279 IH 
United States Constitution applies ‘‘in full’’, and ‘‘unin-
corporated’’ territories, where the Constitution applies 
‘‘only in part’’ (Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 757 
(2008)); 
Whereas the judgment of the Court in Downes v. Bidwell 
(182 U.S. 244 (1901)), the most prominent of the Insu-
lar Cases, was delivered by Justice Henry Billings 
Brown, the author of Plessy v. Ferguson’s doctrine of 
‘‘separate but equal’’, who wrote that America’s newly ac-
quired overseas territories were ‘‘inhabited by alien races, 
differing from us in religion, customs, . . . and modes of 
thought’’, making it impossible to govern ‘‘according to 
Anglo-Saxon principles’’; 
Whereas Justice Edward White, who in a separate 3-Justice 
plurality developed the territorial incorporation doctrine 
in Downes, expressed concerns over the ‘‘evils’’ of admit-
ting ‘‘millions of inhabitants’’ of ‘‘unknown islands, peo-
pled with an uncivilized race’’, who he believed would be 
‘‘absolutely unfit’’ for citizenship; 
Whereas 4 Justices dissented in Downes, with Chief Justice 
Melville Fuller commenting that ‘‘[g]reat stress is thrown 
upon the word ‘incorporation,’ as if possessed of some oc-
cult meaning’’, and Justice John Marshall Harlan ex-
pressing that the ‘‘idea of ‘incorporation’ . . . is enveloped 
in some mystery which I am unable to unravel’’; 
Whereas Justice Harlan, who penned the lone dissent to 
Plessy v. Ferguson, also wrote a series of powerful dis-
sents to the Insular Cases, declaring in Downes that 
‘‘[t]he idea that this country may acquire territories any-
where upon the earth, by conquest or treaty, and hold 
them as mere colonies or provinces—the people inhab-
iting them to enjoy only such rights as Congress chooses 
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•HRES 279 IH 
to accord to them—is wholly inconsistent with the spirit 
and genius, as well as with the words, of the Constitu-
tion’’; 
Whereas the Insular Cases and the territorial incorporation 
doctrine have long received significant criticism from the 
Supreme Court and a broad range of jurists and legal 
scholars; 
Whereas, in 2008, the Supreme Court stated that ‘‘[t]he 
Constitution grants Congress and the President the 
power to acquire, dispose of, and govern territory, not the 
power to decide when and where its terms apply’’, ex-
pressing further that ‘‘over time the ties between the 
United States and any of its unincorporated Territories 
[may] strengthen in ways that are of constitutional sig-
nificance’’ (Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. at 758, 765 
(2008)); 
Whereas, in 2020, the Supreme Court questioned the ‘‘con-
tinued validity’’ of the Insular Cases, indicating ‘‘that the 
Insular Cases should not be further extended’’ (Fin. 
Oversight & Mgmt. Bd. for P.R. v. Aurelius Inv., 140 
S.Ct. 1649, 1665 (2020)); 
Whereas Judge Juan Torruella, who served on the United 
States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 1984 
until his death in 2020, labeled the territorial incorpora-
tion doctrine a ‘‘doctrine of separate and unequal’’, writ-
ing that ‘‘the Insular Cases represent classic Plessy v. 
Ferguson legal doctrine and thought that should be 
eradicated from present-day constitutional reasoning’’ be-
cause they run contrary to ‘‘the most basic precept for 
which this nation stands: the equality before the law of 
all its citizens’’; 
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•HRES 279 IH 
Whereas Chief Judge Gustavo Gelpı´, who has served on the 
United States District Court for the District of Puerto 
Rico since 2006, has called the Insular Cases’ territorial 
incorporation doctrine ‘‘a doctrine of pure judicial inven-
tion, with absolutely no basis in the Constitution and one 
that is contrary to all judicial precedent and territorial 
practice’’; 
Whereas legal scholars with a wide range of views have criti-
cized the Insular Cases and the territorial incorporation 
doctrine, with prominent originalist legal scholar Gary 
Lawson writing that ‘‘there is nothing in the Constitution 
that even intimates that express constitutional limitations 
on national power apply differently to different terri-
tories’’, and leading Constitutional Law Professor San-
ford Levinson calling the Insular Cases ‘‘central docu-
ments in the history of American racism’’; 
Whereas the territorial incorporation doctrine established by 
the Insular Cases is still used to perpetuate the second- 
class treatment of Americans living in the territories, 
from the denial of citizenship, to the denial of voting 
rights, to the denial of equality in Federal benefits pro-
grams; and 
Whereas the time has come to expressly reject the Insular 
Cases as both contrary to the Constitution’s text and his-
tory and as incompatible with our Nation’s core values: 
Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) recognizes that America’s constitutional and 
democratic principles apply throughout the United 
States, including both States and territories; 
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•HRES 279 IH 
(2) acknowledges that the Insular Cases are 
contrary to the text and history of the Constitution; 
(3) acknowledges that the Insular Cases are rel-
ics of the racial views of an earlier era that have no 
place in our Nation today; and 
(4) rejects the Insular Cases and their applica-
tion to all present and future cases and controversies 
involving the application of the Constitution in 
United States territories. 
Æ 
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