美国有线新闻 CNN 负债730亿美元无力偿还 波多黎各申请破产保护

AZUZ: The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico has filed for bankruptcy 1. And because it owes $73 billion in debt, this is the biggest municipal bankruptcy filling in U.S. history.

Bankruptcy is a process that has to be approved by a judge. If it is, it could allow the Caribbean island to pay back creditors 2 less than what it owes. As things stand now, Puerto Rico has been missing payments on its debt for months.

But one downside to bankruptcy is that it could make investors 3 less willing to lend money to the island, and a lack of money is the problem to begin with.

Puerto Rico has been in an economic recession for about 10 years. Its unemployment rate is more than 10 percent compared with less than 5 percent on the U.S. mainland. These are big reasons why the island's population has decreased by 350,000 people in the past 10 years. And fewer working residents means less tax revenue for the island's indebted government.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You'll feel the emptiness. You know, right now, we have this house that was built for our big family and it's only my wife and myself, and — we miss our children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's still the emptiness.

DANIA ALEXANDRINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sadness overtakes the Calderons when they speak of their grown children. Three of whom moved to the United States in the past ten years, in search of better opportunities.

The first to leave was the middle child who had a degree in business, but was working at an airport souvenir shop in Puerto Rico. Their youngest followed, and now has his own business. The oldest left with her husband in the summer of 2014 and immediately found a job as a teacher.

Calderon owns several rental 4 homes which provide additional income. He also runs a moving company and sees firsthand how many well-educated Puerto Ricans leave every day for mainland U.S. For example, engineering students recruited by large companies in the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I pick them, you know, three at a time. You know, these kids before they graduate, they have — big companies in the States, they have the scouts 5 in Puerto Rico scouting 6 these professionals and they hire them even before they graduate.

ALEXANDRINO: According to the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute, between 2013 and 2014, nearly 74,000 people migrated to the United States in search of a better life. Among them, doctors, engineers and teachers.

This is the first time Puerto Rico faces an exodus 7. The first major migration 8 occurred in the 1950s. But back then, it was mainly farm workers and hard laborers 9 that moved — to put it simply, the poor class in search of economic growth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are using a lot of the professional young people. In fact, Puerto Rico is an aging society — people like myself, for example, here. And we're not going anywhere. But the young people are leaving because there are no opportunities.

ALEXANDRINO: Lack of jobs and economic recession and higher taxes have influenced the migration. For now, Puerto Rico's economic crisis is only pushing more of its citizens to seek better opportunities elsewhere.

In Puerto Rico, Dania Alexandrino, CNN.