Rick Santorum is digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole as he unsuccessfully attempts to walk back his offensive and factually incorrect comments he made yesterday about Puerto Rico and statehood. The former Pennsylvania Senator is quoted as saying he would support Puerto Rico becoming a state but only if they adopted English as the new state’s official language, just like every other state has. (They have not.) Santorum also falsely suggested it was a constitutional pre-requisite for statehood.
READ:Â Santorum To Puerto Rico: Speak English! (Or, How To Lose The Hispanic Vote)
Yesterday, Reuters reported “Santorum said he did not support a state in which English was not the primary language,” and published this quote:
“Like any other state, there has to be compliance with this and any other federal law,†Santorum said. “And that is that English has to be the principal language. There are other states with more than one language such as Hawaii but to be a state of the United States, English has to be the principal language.â€
The Huffington Post today reports:
“I never said only English should be spoken here. Never did I even intimate that,” Santorum told local reporters gathered in El Capitolio, the island’s Capitol building. “What I said was that English had to be spoken as well as other – obviously Spanish is going to be spoken, this would be a bilingual country.”
In an official statement as he left the island, Santorum emphasized his roots as the descendent of Italian immigrants who spoke both Italian and English when they first lived in the U.S.
“As the son of an Italian immigrant myself, I continue to believe that English is the language of opportunity in America, under statehood or the current status,” Santorum said in the statement. “What I want is for every child in Puerto Rico to speak English fluently, in addition to Spanish of course.”
HuffPo adds that making English the official language of Puerto Rico is “an issue that the opposition party has always used to combat statehood here in Puerto Rico,” said Henry Neumann, a local official who favors statehood, backs Santorum and has toured the island with him for the past two days. “The majority of Puerto Ricans don’t speak English so they would feel threatened if a candidate would come backing statehood and say everyone needs to speak English.”
And, embarrassingly, Santorum also called Puerto Rico a country. It is not. It is “an unincorporated territory of the United States” and has been since 1898, more than a century ago.