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Pursuant to a series of Supreme Court rulings, Congress decides whether a territory is incorporated or unincorporated. The U.S. Constitution applies to each incorporated territory (including its local government and inhabitants) as it applies to the local governments and residents of a state. Incorporated territories are considered to be ...
As a consequence of the Supreme Court decisions, the United States has since made a distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territories. [17] [18] [19] In essence, an incorporated territory is land that has been irrevocably incorporated within the sovereignty of the United States and to which the full corpus of the U.S. Constitution ...
Unincorporated insular areas can be ceded to another nation or be granted independence. [18] The U.S. has one incorporated insular area, Palmyra Atoll. Incorporation is regarded as perpetual by the U.S. federal government; once incorporated, the territory cannot be disincorporated. [17]
One territory, Palmyra Atoll, is considered to be incorporated, meaning the full body of the Constitution has been applied to it; the other territories are unincorporated, meaning the Constitution does not fully apply to them.
[a] A series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions known as the Insular Cases created a distinction between "incorporated territories", where the full Constitution of the United States applies, and "unincorporated territories", where only basic protections apply. The only current incorporated territory, Palmyra Atoll, is uninhabited.
Unincorporated districts, also known as U.S. Census designated places, are outlined by the government for data and do not have elected city officials. These communities, whether big or small, are ...
The line drawn by the Supreme Court created "incorporated territories", those destined to be states, and "unincorporated territories", which were not on the path to statehood. In 1901 and the era of the Insular Cases, the areas that became unincorporated territories were Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
The concept of "territorial incorporation" is that the United States can be proprietor of a territory without having actually incorporated that territory into the United States. Unincorporated territories are not due the full benefits of the US Constitution, as noted from Justice White's decision above.