{"id":359487,"date":"2026-09-29T03:42:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T03:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/359487\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T03:42:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T03:42:23","slug":"how-do-you-protect-puerto-rico-from-nycs-vulture-capitalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/359487\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Protect Puerto Rico From NYC’s Vulture Capitalists?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much of this year, Puerto Rico has been in a severe water crisis<\/a>, now considered a “drought disaster.” At the same time, the archipelago has faced an economic crisis compounded by a U.S. financial board<\/a> that slashed social and infrastructure spending while protecting the interests of corporate bondholders. Meanwhile luxury developers\u2014one hailing from New York\u2014have decided it’s the right time to push forward on building a new private city for wealthy investors<\/a>, one that builds over acres of protected land.<\/p>\n

To City Councilmember Alexa Avil\u00e9s\u2014whose family comes from Puerto Rico’s Vega Baja, on the northern part of the island\u2014the suffering of her people is also a New York story. She says much of the exploitation of the island can be traced directly back to the Big Apple. That’s why, on Monday, she and her colleagues in the Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries and International Relations heard three resolutions she sponsors that seek to protect Puerto Rico, and which will soon go to a City Council vote.<\/p>\n

“We are the city that has the largest population of Puerto Ricans outside of the island, but also, more fundamentally, the financial institutions which are behind much of the island’s economic challenges are based here in New York City,” she told Hell Gate ahead of the vote.<\/p>\n

One of the resolutions demands that the state legislature pass a bill<\/a> that would close a legal loophole that allows New York-based predatory “vulture funds” to buy debt<\/a> in fiscally unstable places like Puerto Rico<\/a>, and then sue them in New York courts<\/a> to recall the debt for a profit. More than half of the world\u2019s sovereign debt bonds are governed by New York laws<\/a>. “It’s a predatory practice that is pretty egregious and disgusting, and certainly has been a giant part of Puerto Rico’s economic problem,” Avil\u00e9s said.<\/p>\n

However, the state law\u2014sponsored by State Senator Liz Krueger and Assemblymember Jessica Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas\u2014has stalled several times in the legislature due to opposition by special interest groups, she said. This year, it passed again<\/a> in the New York Senate, but Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie did not<\/a> bring it to a vote<\/a> in the Assembly. “[The law] hasn’t passed\u2014not because it’s not the right thing to do, but because we’re up against the financial lobby. And that is very powerful,” said Avil\u00e9s. Heastie did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"New Yorkers protesting Esencia in Union Square last month. (Hell Gate)<\/p>\n

Give us your email to read the full story<\/p>\n

\n Sign up now for our free newsletters.\n <\/p>\n


\n Sign up
\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Much of this year, Puerto Rico has been in a severe water crisis, now considered a “drought disaster.”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-359487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}