SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — President Barack Obama has accepted an invitation to visit Puerto Rico next month, a trip that would make him the first sitting president to come to the U.S. territory in decades, the island's governor said Tuesday.
The president, who campaigned in Puerto Rico for
the Democratic primary, will visit the island June 14, Gov. Luis Fortuno said,
without disclosing details of his itinerary.
"With his visit, the president makes good on
the promise he made during the presidential primaries in 2008 that he would
return to Puerto Rico as president," Fortuno said in a statement.
The governor's office described the Obama trip as
the "the first official presidential visit" since December 1961, when
President John F. Kennedy stopped on the island to a formal welcome on his way
to Venezuela. But that was not the last time a U.S. president set foot in the
territory: President Gerald Ford hosted an economic summit in Puerto Rico in
June 1976.
Puerto Rico is home to nearly 4 million U.S.
citizens but its residents cannot vote in the general presidential election,
only in the primaries.
Andres W. Lopez, a member of the Democratic
National Committee from the island, said the president's visit may also help
him with Puerto Ricans on the mainland, particularly in South Florida, which is
home to some 725,000 people of Puerto Rican descent and an important
battleground state in the 2012 election.
"I am certain that the 4 million Puerto Ricans
who live on the mainland will be bursting with a real sense of 'orgullo
Boricua' (Puerto Rican pride) when they see the respect that President Obama
has shown to Puerto Rico," Lopez said.
Copyright
2011 The Associated Press.
