Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris declared that if she wins the White House in November, she will work to ensure a better future for Puerto Ricans. She made this statement on Friday night, during the seventh anniversary of the devastating impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico.
“As president, I will always be committed to Puerto Rico’s future and to ensuring that every community in Puerto Rico has the opportunity not just to survive, but to thrive,” Harris stated in a press release.
Harris was a senator from California when, on September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, causing more than 3,000 deaths and completely devastating the island’s infrastructure, including the power grid, which left thousands of people without electricity for months.
After the catastrophe, Harris visited the island and witnessed the “devastation” left by the hurricane. “I met with families whose lives had been shattered, business owners who had lost everything, and people in communities without power and without hope of rebuilding,” she recalled.
When the hurricane hit Puerto Rico, the president was Donald Trump, now Harris’s rival in the upcoming November elections. At the time, Trump traveled to the island and threw rolls of paper towels to Puerto Ricans in a relief center, an act that was harshly criticized.
Harris alludes to this episode in her statement, emphasizing that Puerto Ricans “did not need paper towels thrown at them; they needed real help and collaboration.”
In this regard, Harris highlighted the work she has done in recent years alongside President Joe Biden to unlock billions in aid funds for disaster recovery and to ensure they reach Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, has also received federal allocations in recent years as part of COVID-19 relief measures and laws spearheaded by Biden and Harris, such as the infrastructure bill passed in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022.