Puerto Rico owes $72 Billion to various hedge funds and investors and its governor, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, has admitted that there is no way to pay it. The problem is that PR is a U.S. territory and not a state and hence has no recourse to filing for bankruptcy. On Jan 1 2016 when PR failed to make a scheduled interest payment, it had officially defaulted on its obligations. In May it missed $422 million in interest payments. There is another two billion dollars due in July.

No presidential candidate has come out strongly in support of allowing PR to file for bankruptcy and this is not surprising. If PR were to be allowed to obtain protection from its creditors by filing for bankruptcy, many large hedge funds would lose billons. These hedge funds have been lobbying hard with politicians from both parties to prevent such a scenario. Without bankruptcy as an option, the other possible option is a massive bailout and it is hard to imagine any candidate pushing for this. Memories of 2008 are still too vivid and no one wants to stand up and admit that they are paying off the big hedge funds for the risk they knowingly took that did not pan out.

Speaker Paul Ryan has drafted a bill that would form a five-member oversight board to decide for the island on how to find a way forward, including selectively allowing bankruptcy protection for certain entities. Unfortunately, an oversight board feels a lot like a colonial power imposing its views on a captive territory. This has not been well received by the island’s elected officials nor its citizenry. The bill was supposed to have been passed a few weeks ago but has been delayed and will be submitted for consideration in the next few days.

PR has been in a recession for the last ten years. When the tax benefits given to pharmaceutical companies in the 1980s to encourage manufacturing on the island ended, most of those companies relocated their operations back to the mainland. As jobs left the island, the economy stagnated and the downward spiral began. It is estimated that over 500,000 educated Puerto Ricans left the island looking for work in the last few years. 45 percent of the island’s remaining population lives in poverty. Unemployment is at 16 percent, about triple the rate of the mainland U.S.

What these structural problems mean is that even if some temporary relief on the debt were possible, PR will continue in its long term decline. The workforce does not exist to pull the economy out of its recession and provide a sustainable way to repay its obligations. If only we could get 100,000 hard working and enterprising youngsters to relocate to PR and restart the economic engine!

This is where skilled immigrants come in. We have the EB5 program that enables foreigners who are willing to invest $500,000 in an economically disadvantaged area (or $1,000,000 in a general area) and create ten jobs to get a green card (permanent residency). That is a great framework that can be applied to PR.

We should enable anyone willing to invest $100,000 and relocate to PR and reside there for a minimum of five years to be eligible for a green card. If we could attract 100,000 people with that program, PR will have enough money to honor its obligations for the next few years, while jumpstarting the economy with hungry engineers and doctors who want a shot at the American dream.Any foreigner who believes in democracy, peaceful co-existence, and basic American values should be eligible.

Puerto Ricans are a warm and welcoming people. For reasons, many beyond their control, they find themselves in this unfortunate situation where basic government services are being cut. Schools are being shut down, health services are being pared, and the security situation could quickly deteriorate. If that was not bad enough, the first case of the Zika virus just hit the island. Few leaders seem to care about this looming humanitarian crisis happening right on U.S. soil. Bold thinking is needed desperately.