A majority of voters in Puerto Rico, the American territory lampooned by President Donald Trump and buffeted in recent times by crushing debt and natural disasters, have again voted in favor of becoming a U.S. state.

The Caribbean island's sixth referendum on whether to change its current status took place on Tuesday, the same day voters on the U.S. mainland were electing a president.

This time, the question asked of Puerto Ricans was, "Should Puerto Rico be admitted immediately into the Union as a State?"

According to preliminary results, 52 percent said yes, with 48 percent opposed.

It is the fourth plebiscite in which pro-statehood sentiments have prevailed, though none have previously caused Congress to act. The earlier five were all hit by boycotts.

"This is a clear message that the people of Puerto Rico want equality," Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez said Wednesday after winning a second four-year term as the island's non-voting member of Congress.

Puerto Ricans are American citizens but are deprived of certain privileges as the territory is a U.S. commonwealth. For instance, they cannot vote in presidential or congressional general elections unless they live on the mainland.

One expert who wants Capitol Hill to act speedily on this latest result is Professor Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus of Columbia Law School, a specialist in the legal issues surrounding the political status of Puerto Rico and other American territories such as the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam.

"By stalling now, Congress would add fresh insult to old injury by confirming the suspicion that racism against Puerto Ricans is alive and well in America," she wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times.

'Corrupt and inept'

Political pundits in Washington believe Democrats are more open to making the island the 51st state than Republicans, who regard it as a Democratic stronghold even though the official GOP platform backs the idea. 

If the Democrats fail to capture both houses of Congress in the general election on Tuesday, the proposal is likely to be shunted to the back burner.

Puerto Rico has suffered from economic and natural disasters in recent years – a plight many residents partly blame on its murky constitutional status.

In May 2017, heavy indebtedness forced the territory to file for the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, just four months before Hurricane Maria struck.

Trump has spent much of his administration blasting officials in the territory as corrupt and inept and, at one time, went as far as withholding hurricane relief aid.

According to Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff, the president even once suggested selling "dirty" and "poor" Puerto Rico and buying Greenland instead.

The U.S. territory has also had to contend with a series of earthquakes and tremors since late last year.

Top Photo: A fan waves a Puerto Rican flag before the 2017 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, July 30, 2017. /CFP