Peo­ple across the Unit­ed States and around the world have been right­ly out­raged by U.S. fed­er­al agen­cies’ deten­tion of migrants and sep­a­ra­tion of their fam­i­lies at the U.S.-Mexico bor­der. Short­ly after, the Supreme Court’s ruled to uphold the Trump administration’s racist trav­el ban on sev­er­al Mus­lim-major­i­ty coun­tries, reviv­ing anoth­er fierce reac­tion to the admin­is­tra­tion’s pol­i­cy toward immi­grants, trav­el­ers and asy­lum seekers.

As with Central America, the United States is committing crimes in Yemen that force millions into desperate circumstances.

In mid­dle school, chil­dren in the Unit­ed States learn that the three branch­es of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment are arranged with a sys­tem of ​“checks and bal­ances,” so that no one branch over­steps its pow­er and vio­lates the rights of indi­vid­u­als. But now, the whole world can see that the only thing ​“checked” by the White House and the Supreme Court is the human right to free­dom of movement.

The cas­es are unit­ed by more than one admin­is­tra­tion’s xeno­pho­bia. Much of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Mus­lim world share a lega­cy of U.S. inter­ven­tions dri­ving the very migra­tion now being cru­el­ly restricted.

Lat­inx migrants at the south­ern bor­der have been in the nation­al spot­light. But too rarely has the ques­tion been asked: What sit­u­a­tion would com­pel so many peo­ple to leave their homes and take the per­ilous jour­ney north in the first place?

An hon­est answer requires an exam­i­na­tion of U.S. pol­i­cy in Latin Amer­i­ca, par­tic­u­lar­ly Cen­tral America.

While the Trump admin­is­tra­tion talks inces­sant­ly about its favorite vil­lain, the gang MS-13, it says noth­ing about the ori­gins of the gang. MS-13 was actu­al­ly incu­bat­ed on the streets and in the pris­ons of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, where so many Sal­vado­ran migrants were incar­cer­at­ed in the 1990s. Wash­ing­ton’s depor­ta­tion of for­mer pris­on­ers — among oth­er Sal­vado­rans — back to El Sal­vador was the con­text for the devel­op­ment of the MS-13.

The Sal­vado­ran com­mu­ni­ty that devel­oped in the Unit­ed States in the 1980s and 1990s itself emerged as Sal­vado­rans fled a night­mar­ish civ­il war. The Unit­ed States was deeply involved in that con­flict, arm­ing and sup­port­ing the Sal­vado­ran gov­ern­ment and right-wing para­mil­i­tary forces through­out Cen­tral America.

These death squads com­mit­ted acts of unspeak­able vio­lence that still rever­ber­ate through­out the region today. Sim­i­lar pat­terns have played out in Guatemala and Hon­duras, which are also coun­tries of ori­gin for refugees where the Unit­ed States has a lega­cy of back­ing right-wing lead­ers past and present.

On the oth­er side of the world is Yemen, one of the sev­en coun­tries whose peo­ple are tar­get­ed by the trav­el ban — and the site of a cat­a­stroph­ic U.S.-backed war. We may not hear the cries of Yemeni chil­dren the way we heard those of chil­dren detained at the bor­der. But many of them are also sep­a­rat­ed from their fam­i­lies here in the Unit­ed States because of the trav­el ban.

As with Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, the Unit­ed States is com­mit­ting crimes in Yemen that force mil­lions into des­per­ate circumstances.

Accord­ing to the Unit­ed Nations, the worst human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in the world today exists in Yemen — a strik­ing dis­tinc­tion, giv­en that there’s no short­age of oth­er dis­as­ters around the globe. There is a civ­il war in Yemen, in which com­bat­ants on both sides have tak­en actions that have had severe con­se­quences for civil­ians. But the over­whelm­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for the destruc­tion lies with a coali­tion led by Sau­di Ara­bia and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, which has bombed Yemen mer­ci­less­ly in sup­port of the Sau­di-friend­ly Abdrab­buh Man­sour Hadi, whom the Gulf States seek to install as the president.

Their cam­paign has tar­get­ed civil­ian infra­struc­ture, wed­dings, funer­als and even med­ical facil­i­ties. As a result, tens of thou­sands have been killed and mil­lions have been dis­placed. Mil­lions face star­va­tion as well as sick­ness and death from entire­ly pre­ventable dis­eases like cholera. Accord­ing to UNICEF, 11 mil­lion chil­dren, or ​“near­ly every child in Yemen,” is in need of human­i­tar­i­an assistance.

A dropped bomb or explod­ed mis­sile leaves so much in its wake. But there is a par­tic­u­lar and pecu­liar rem­nant of the blasts that have wound­ed Yemen. Yeme­nis find, again and again, labels on bomb frag­ments that indi­cate they are made and sold by the Unit­ed States.

Indeed, last sum­mer, Trump nego­ti­at­ed with Sau­di Ara­bia to sell the king­dom $110 bil­lion in weapons. The Unit­ed States also approved $2 bil­lion in arms sales to the U.A.E. last year. The Unit­ed States is also sup­ply­ing intel­li­gence to the Saudi/​Emirati coali­tion, as well as mid-air refu­el­ing for coali­tion aircraft.

The Unit­ed States, there­fore, is doing every­thing but drop­ping the bombs itself. But even that dis­tinc­tion dis­solves when one remem­bers that the Unit­ed States did bomb Yemen repeat­ed­ly using drone strikes and cruise mis­sile attacks through­out the Oba­ma administration.

The Unit­ed States has bombed Yeme­nis. It is sup­ply­ing the weapons for oth­er coun­tries to bomb Yeme­nis now. And, as it’s doing toward Cen­tral Amer­i­cans in the most cal­lous way, it is deny­ing Yeme­nis the right to enter the Unit­ed States.

The begin­ning of account­abil­i­ty for those actions is let­ting these — and all — refugees in. But that can­not be the end. Let this time of anguish and out­rage be one of a deep reck­on­ing — with what the Unit­ed States does at its bor­ders, with­in them, and beyond them.

This arti­cle was pro­duced in col­lab­o­ra­tion with For­eign Pol­i­cy In Focus.