Faith leaders urge Biden to withdraw Trump lawsuit blocking payments to Puerto Ricans

WASHINGTON: Top faith leaders from across the United States on Tuesday urged President Joe Biden to immediately withdraw a lawsuit filed by his predecessor to block $2.3 billion in supplemental income payments to some 300,000 aged, blind and disabled Puerto Ricans.

Catholic Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez of San Juan, the head of Catholic Charities USA, and leaders from other churches called on Biden to use executive orders and back congressional action to attract more pharmaceutical and other manufacturing jobs to the Caribbean island, a US territory of 3.2 million people hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Biden administration should also free up more disaster relief aid for the island and expand federal programs such as the Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicare, the signers said.

"Nearly 60% of Puerto Rico's children, US citizens, live in poverty and would benefit from these measures," they wrote in the letter, which was delivered to the White House on Tuesday.

The pandemic cut revenues and raised costs at a time when Puerto Rico was already reeling from bankruptcy, severe earthquakes and two devastating 2017 hurricanes, Irma and Maria.

The signers welcomed the release of some hurricane recovery funds by the Biden administration, but said some $50 billion more was needed.

Biden campaigned against what he called the "current untenable situation" in Puerto Rico, vowing to step up federal disaster aid, end discriminatory practices, and rebuild the island's "significantly deficient infrastructure."

But his administration has not yet scrapped a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department under former President Donald Trump to block an April 2020 federal appeals court ruling that allows all eligible Puerto Ricans to apply for supplemental Social Security benefits under the Supplemental Security Income program.

The benefits had been available to any US citizen living in any of the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and the Mariana Islands, but not Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and Guam.

Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, said the letter was intended to galvanize action by the Biden administration to help Puerto Ricans, who have faced "crisis after crisis, disaster after disaster" over the past decade.

No comment was immediately available from the Justice Department.