JOE ZESSKI: Hello. Welcome to Ask About the ADA, the podcast where we answer your questions about the Americans with Disabilities Act and how it applies to your everyday life. I'm Joe Zesski, the program manager at the Northeast ADA Center, and thank you for joining us on today's podcast.
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This week we're going to look back at a webinar that our center presented. It featured our affiliates in the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The Northeast ADA is a center that covers a region defined by New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Our affiliates are represented by Archie Jennings and Nellyber Correa in this episode.
Archie Jennings works for the Disability Rights Center of the Virgin Islands, and Nellyber works for MAVI, the largest independent living center in Puerto Rico. We'll focus in on the challenges faced locally in both territories.
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Archie, let's begin with you. A lot of times people think that the ADA doesn't apply in the territories, which of course isn't true, but are there differences in local laws to the ADA?
ARCHIE JENNINGS: Thank you, Joe. One of the aspects I try to separate out is that, of course, the ADA is a federal law. And therefore, it covers the jurisdiction or those issues set forth in its statute. Then, the Virgin Islands being a territory, or if it were a state has its own separate laws to adhere to.
The biggest distinction I can give you, and the easiest one, is that under Title I employment, there is a jurisdictional limit for the employer in that it covers those employers that have 15 or more employees, which is different from Virgin Islands because Virgin Islands has many, many small employers, much less than 15. So the law in the-- there is a civil rights law that includes disability, which people here did advocate for and have it incorporated in the category disability into the existing civil rights laws.
So those employers less than 15 are covered by the local law, but not the federal law. So that's a very good example. Some of the other laws that are unique to the Virgin Islands is that disability is recognized under the workman's comp statute as getting some special attention.
Virgin Islands has its own special ed law, which again, when you look at the federal law, there's-- always got to remember, the federal law is the minimum. Every territory has to adhere to that, but it can expand upon it. The Virgin Islands had one critical aspect of its special ed law as to, what is a meaningful education?
There's a difference in interpretation for person or educational programs for-- on the federal side versus under the local law. We have protections for guardianship that relate to persons with disability. Virgin Islands has its own disability adult abuse protection act, which was a way to expand the developmental disability federal law, is to give it some local protections against abuse, physical or financial.
Basically, that covers it. Those four areas expand upon different areas than the ADA, but it's just for the Virgin Islands and the Virgin Islands law. All public accommodations section was, once they made disability a category under the civil rights law, it does also cover public accommodations as protection, similar as the federal law.
JOE ZESSKI: Thanks, Archie, for that insight. Nellyber, what about in Puerto Rico?
NELLYBER CORREA: Yes, in Puerto Rico, the ADA applies to all in the island, but we have a lot of laws, state laws that applies to people with disabilities and their rights. But two main laws that I can mention is for the Law 44 for 1985. This prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities, and the other one is the Law Number 238. This law is the letter of the right of people with disabilities. And this implements how the state and local government will make policy and procedures that are based on exclusion and have access for people with disability and what-- their rights they have.
JOE ZESSKI: Much appreciated for your answer, Nellyber. This next question is for whoever wants to handle it first. In terms of the ADA or disability-related issues, are there challenges in the island that are unique or different from those on the mainland?
ARCHIE JENNINGS: I'll defer to Puerto Rico first.
NELLYBER CORREA: Well, I don't know if it is more important or more difficult than the mainland, but Puerto Rico has a lot of state laws. So basically, our situation is that we have problems with implementation and enforcement of the law. So we have law for education, for access to transportation, for other things.
But the way that the policy and procedures and regulations on the island are established said something. And the implementations is another thing. So it's like, in idea, we are trying to be based on inclusion, but in the actions, we exclude people with disabilities in some aspect of their life.
JOE ZESSKI: Do people often ask how they can have their rights enforced?
NELLYBER CORREA: Well, my common questions about ADA are about transportation accessibility, about effective communication for deaf community, and how employment and their reasonable accommodation. And the other one is post-secondary education.
JOE ZESSKI: That's interesting. And Archie, what do people most often ask you? And also, do you have any take on the unique challenges in the Virgin Islands?
ARCHIE JENNINGS: Yes, one that was mentioned already is the access for the deaf and hard of hearing. And we've been lucky enough to try to get an organization going to address that issue. We have very few sign language interpreters. If you have a government function and some other public accommodations, it's always a big fight or an issue to make sure that someone's there to assist the general public who are deaf and hard of hearing to participate.
But a common one for both Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands is that issue of lack of coverage under SSI. Supplemental Security Income is not available in the Virgin Islands or in Puerto Rico, and there's a lot of traffic between both of our territories and the Eastern seaboard of the United States from Massachusetts on down to the tip of Florida.
And people, especially those who have children with disabilities, many times need other type of services. So it sort of combines that-- lack of SSI means a lack of certain health care benefits as well because Medicare is not open to them. And they have to rely on Medicaid.
And that's still in a shifting sands position for the Virgin Islands, but even locally, access to health care, to doctors, that seems to be one of the bigger issues right now that people are facing as many of the older, many of the adults, especially those who have autism, are now adults. And so it's a growing concern as to having enough resources to address that population.
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JOE ZESSKI: That's it for today's edition of Ask About The ADA. I hope you found it interesting and informative, and I hope it gave you some insight on the issues in the territories of the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. If you have questions about the Americans with Disabilities Act or other disability-related laws, please don't hesitate to contact us here at the Northeast ADA.
You can call us at 800-949-4232 or visit our website at northeastada.org. And of course, you can look for Northeast ADA on social media. Thank you for joining. And as always, thank you to Grace Fairchild, the producer for our podcast, Peter Quinn of the Yang-Tan Institute's media team who polishes up the final product, and thank you all for being a part of our conversation together.
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