Benicio Del Toro has called for more representation of Puerto Ricans in the United States government.
The Traffic actor was born in San German, Puerto Rico and grew up on the island until he moved to Mercersburg, Pennsylvania at the age of 15 with his father and brother.
During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday night (18Jun18), Benicio shared that the territory was slowly recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Maria last September (17) but he wanted to see U.S. officials do more.
“They’re getting back to normal. I was there about two weeks ago. Everything is getting back to normal, it’s taking a while,” he said, going on to add: “The bottom line is, every American citizen that lives in Puerto Rico, if they don’t get a right to vote or to have representation in Congress, nothing is really going to change.”
While Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens and may move freely between the island and the mainland, Puerto Rico does not have a vote in the U.S. Congress, which governs the territory. They have one non-voting member of the House of Representatives called a Resident Commissioner.
During the interview, host Stephen also asked the Sicario: Day of the Soldado star if he had considered a political career, to which he responded, “Not at all. Are you going to endorse me?”
