As the family separation policy unfolds on the United States’ borders and our news feeds fill with photos and recordings of anguished infants and toddlers crying out for their parents, there is a slice of the American public for whom the reaction goes beyond mere gut-gripping loathing: those of us whose children were born in other countries and became naturalized U.S. citizens when we adopted them.

We, for the most part, are freaking out.

We connect to this story on multiple levels: Some of us fear that our children’s countries of birth ― China, Korea, Russia ― will cross paths with President Donald Trump’s ire and he will smite them down, taking our children with them. We are acutely aware of how the United States rounded up its citizens of Japanese descent and put them in prison camps not so long ago. It was executive order 9066, and it remains a horrific reminder of what mass hysteria and prejudice can do.