Julio Ricardo Varela

As of this posting, there have now been a total of 537 more deaths in September 2017 when compared with September 2016, and 657 more deaths in October 2017 when compared to October 2017.

“We always expected that the number of hurricane-related deaths would increase as we received more factual information —not hearsay— and this review will ensure we are correctly counting everybody.”

“With this, I suggest that the number of total deaths in Puerto Rico is not a fixed one.”

A comment was made 36 hours after requests to both the White House and Department of Homeland Security.

“Of course, we welcome the information that the journalists stated.”

I do wonder that if former Univision host Rodner Figueroa had said what he said on Spanish-language television 10 years ago, he would still be part of the Univision family today, for the very reason that Spanish-language media didn’t have as much of a mainstream national or digital reach as it does now. Maybe a […]

A few things you need to know: tax stories are really complicated and quite frankly, a bit geeky. You should also know that Puerto Rico is on the brink of bankruptcy. I’m pretty sure that you haven’t heard about that fact, nor about the story that governor Alejandro García Padilla and his status-quo pro-Commonwealth Popular […]

I have become highly skeptical of immigration movies. I don’t know why, but maybe it’s because our collective has received so many emails this year, that it suddenly feels like overkill. Immigration rights is a “hot topic,” and while more and more projects have become real movies and even Oscar winners, very little has happened […]

When I wrote an opinion piece on May 21 basically questioning an incredibly misleading piece by Nate Cohn of The New York Times’ “Upshot” blog, I never would have thought that 1) Latino Rebels would still be covering the story; 2) The Times would not yet respond to my emails about Cohn’s reporting; and 3) […]

UPDATE, 8:15pmET, May 22, 2014: I had an email exchange with one of the study’s co-authors today, and she wrote me that Cohn’s inferences about the data were his and not her research group’s conclusions. She also wrote that the study was still not public, nor was it finalized. Read more here. In the ongoing […]

Given that Twitter will be very busy tonight when Jorge Ramos chats immigration with Mamiverse, Latino Rebels, and iHispano, I am feeling a bit selfish right now. I know many people have submitted some great questions for Ramos, but there is a part of me that just wants Ramos to answer the following 10 questions […]

Censorship. In the Internet age, it is a word that is tossed about a lot and mostly misinterpreted. To give this column some context, let's actually read from the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or […]

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT JULIORVARELA.COM Last night the island of Puerto Rico experienced a historic election. Not only did Puerto Ricans go to the polls to vote for Governor, Resident Commissioner, and other legislative positions, they also voted in yet another non-binding plebiscite that tried to determine whether Puerto Ricans favored its current commonwealth relationship with […]

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT JULIORVARELA.COM So, this interview from Fox Business' Varney and Co. with Puerto Rico Secretary of Commerce José Pérez-Riera is quite telling. The level of ignorance from the American media is sad. Let's get this straight: you can disagree with Pérez-Riera, but the interviewers should at least respect the guy. When will Puerto Ricans wake […]