Imagine for a moment that, tomorrow, three million people of color in the United States lost the right to vote for president and to elect voting representatives to Congress, even as that Congress continues to pass legislation that shapes their lives. Most Americans would rightfully consider it a democratic crisis and an affront to racial justice; political outrage and action would be swift.

And yet, that very political powerlessness has been the status quo in Puerto Rico for more than a century, since the United States invaded the archipelago in 1898 and established a colonial relationship that endures to this day. But like the proverbial frog in slowly boiling water, Americans have become so accustomed to this objectionable political reality that it hardly garners attention or concern.

This apathy and inaction must end: the United States has a moral responsibility to end its political subjugation of Puerto Rico. To that end, Congress should pass H.R. 2070, the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act (PRSDA), which would establish an inclusive and transparent decolonization process that respects Puerto Ricans’ rights, nationhood and identity.

We are two Puerto Rico-born Colorado residents working with Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora (BUDPR), a group of Puerto Ricans in the United States and around the world who advocate for a just political future for our homeland. As part of this work, we have recently met with members of Colorado’s Congressional delegation, four of whom sit on the House Natural Resources Committee which oversees Puerto Rico – Representative Neguse is already a co-sponsor of the PRSDA, along with more than 80 other influential Democrats. Time and again, we’ve heard how important it is for members of Congress to hear from their constituents about this issue.

That relationship between public officials and the voters who elect them is fundamental to democracy, and it throws into stark relief the egregious political subordination of Puerto Ricans. Whose constituents are the millions of Puerto Ricans on the island? Who speaks for and listens to them? Puerto Ricans elect a single delegate to Congress who cannot vote on legislation and is therefore, for all intents and purposes, politically impotent. No other elected official in the United States answers to the Puerto Rican people. At the same time, the U.S. has ignored, in the best of times, and violently repressed in the worst of times, the Puerto Rican independence movement, suppressing any efforts toward national liberation.

Thus a perfect vicious circle is formed: U.S. leaders have no political incentives to address this issue because Puerto Rico is effectively a colony, and Puerto Rico remains a colony because U.S. leaders have no incentives to address the issue.

In the absence of those incentives, we are compelled to do something that will strike many as extraordinarily naive: ask politicians to do something, not because it will help them win elections, but simply because it is the right thing to do. In recent years, Congress, and the American people, have been rightfully concerned about threats to democracy at home and abroad. But the project of American democracy itself will remain shamefully incomplete while the United States’ political domination of Puerto Rico continues.

The Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act, which is scheduled for a vote in committee next month, is a unique opportunity to resolve the question of the island’s status once and for all. Previous efforts have stalled, in large part, because they have been one-sided pushes for statehood: an option that hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans who value our nationhood reject, and which has scant support in D.C. Even now, a statehood admissions bill based on the results of a disputed 2020 plebiscite is trying to make its way through the House while even purported supporters of statehood acknowledge that it has no chance of making it through the Senate.

The PRSDA calls for the creation of a status convention in Puerto Rico that would study, debate, and put to a vote all non-territorial status options. It would do so in conjunction with a bilateral Congressional commission, which is key to ensuring that the alternatives are legitimate and politically acceptable in the United States – not pie-in-the-sky choices destined to be ignored or rejected by Congress. We do not contend that this process would magically solve all the deep-rooted divisions on this complex issue. But it is by far the most comprehensive, inclusive and balanced attempt to end Puerto Rico’s colonial status.

Puerto Rico did not invade itself in 1898. It has not denied itself democratic rights or full sovereignty and it cannot single-handedly decolonize itself. As the United States continues to grapple with the racial and political sins of its past, it must also contend with this one, and commit itself to redressing this 123-year-long injustice. We call on the members of Colorado’s Congressional delegation, on all members of Congress, and on all Americans to live up to their democratic values and to support this path to self-determination for Puerto Rico.

Luis Ponce Ruiz is SEIU Local 105‘s strategic campaigns and research director and co-founder of Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora (BUDPR). Alberto Medina is a Colorado-based Puerto Rican writer, editor, and member of BUDPR.