Vice President Kamala Harris plans to visit Puerto Rico on Friday, even as she and President Joe Biden struggle to keep their promises to the disaster-stricken island.
The White House said Harris plans to emphasize how Biden’s agenda helped bring good jobs to Puerto Rico even as they struggle with basic infrastructure issues.
Puerto Rico suffered catastrophic damage from the 2017 hurricanes Irma and Maria and earthquakes in 2019 and 2020. Although record levels of reconstruction funding have been passed to the island, many of the funds are still tied up in bureaucratic crisis.
Only eight percent of the $23 billion in available federal funds has been spent on reconstruction, according to to an audit by the Government Accountability Office released in February 2024.
Vice President Kamala Harris left Washington, DC to visit Puerto Rico on Friday
In 2020, Kamala Harris promised a “more compassionate” response to the island to help rebuild infrastructure
The report noted that “a significant amount of permanent work remains” on the island and that Puerto Rico had used only $1.8 billion of its allocated funds. Much of the funding requires permission from FEMA to use.
The island continues to suffer rolling blackouts as permanent upgrades to the power grid remain unfinished.
Puerto Rico’s power plant output has only worsened in recent years, according to the reportsfrom 52 percent to 42 percent capacity.
Harris’ visit comes as Democrats are desperate to maintain their grip on the Latino demographic for the 2024 election.
A CBS News in February vote showed that Biden’s support among Hispanics has dropped 12 points since 2020, from 65 percent to 53 percent.
White House Communications Director Brian Fallon shared a news story on social media on Friday that underscores the political calculation behind the trip as a way to ‘reach out to Latino voters.’
Late. William Villafañe, a member of the New Progressive Party, said Harris’ visit was “remarkable” and “long overdue” but that “mere recognition is not enough.”
Villafañe told DailyMail.com that Puerto Rico residents remained disadvantaged, lacking access to public welfare programs such as Medicare Part B enrollment, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicare Extra Prescription Assistance, all while suffering an exodus of doctors from island due to lower state subsidy rates.
“This visit should serve as a wake-up call to bipartisan action to hold the administration accountable and deliver tangible solutions that prioritize the well-being of all American citizens, including those in Puerto Rico,” he said.
He also promoted the island’s statehood bill, which he argued was extremely important to the people of Puerto Rico.
‘Puerto Rico has voted three times to become a state. The administration and Congress must take steps to ensure equal protection and equity across all federal programs,’ Villafañe said.
Harris’ visit comes ahead of Puerto Rico’s 2024 Democratic presidential election, held on April 28.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, both Biden and Harris accused former President Donald Trump of failing to help the island recover, promising a more compassionate and competent response.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has made several trips to the island to promote green energy projects in Puerto Rico.
Earthquake damage in Ponce, Puerto Rico in 2020
Energy Minister Jennifer Granholm has focused on making the island’s electricity grid 100 percent clean energy by 2050
Granholm is focused on the island’s goal of making the electricity grid 100 percent clean energy by 2050, even as the existing fossil fuel-powered infrastructure suffers.
“Despite, and because, and amid the heartbreak, Puerto Ricans also saw a great opportunity to build a new energy system that was resilient, independent and clean,” she said during a visit to San Juan, Puerto Rico in February.
The vice president’s visit will take place three and a half years since she wrote one op-ed for the Tampa Bay Times promises ‘a full recovery and rebuilding of Puerto Rico’s resilient infrastructure.’
“We see you, we hear you, and every day we stand with you,” Harris pledged, adding that she and Biden would “reverse the damage that remains three years after Hurricane Maria and help usher in a brighter future ‘.
Author Susanne Ramirez de Arellano described Harris’s visit as “farce and political theater for Puerto Ricans like me who live on the island” in a column for Bloomberg Opinion.
She argued that Harris was not there to help the island, but to motivate millions of Puerto Rican natives who had moved to key swing states on the mainland.
Carlos Mercader, the former executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, who lives in Puerto Rico, said Harris’ visit would be “inconsequential” to the election.
“She is not popular with Hispanics, including the Puerto Rican community,” Mercader told DailyMail.com. ‘The only place this could have an impact is in central Florida, and I expect the same thing to happen that went through in 2022, where most Puerto Ricans who voted supported conservatives, as in Rubio and DeSantis.’
Mercader now hosts a show where he focuses on local and national issues important to Puerto Rico from a conservative political perspective.
Edwin Francisco, the president of the Puerto Rico Young Republican Federation, acknowledged that Harris’ visit was important, but argued that it was more of a “political stunt.”
“She’ll be in Puerto Rico about 6 hours and she’ll forget about Puerto Rico like the Biden administration did when he was in Florida on the 2020 presidential campaign to support statehood,” he said.
Francisco defended the Trump administration’s response to Hurricane Maria, noting that they allocated the largest amount of federal funds to the reconstruction of Puerto Rico. He was not convinced that Harris’s visit would actually make much of a difference on the island.
“The VP’s standard operating procedure is to visit, wave and smile, but do nothing,” he said.