The month of the election also saw a spike in applications opened for Israeli citizenship—320 in November, up from 136 the previous month—according to the Jewish Agency for Israel. However, in December 2016, the number dipped to 194. Citizenship is granted to all Jews under Israel’s Law of Return.

The uptick in applications may be due to various factors, and the number of applicants to Spain and Portugal—whose laws are quite new—are relatively low (according to Spain’s Ministry of Justice, 238 American Jews or descendants of Jews have applied for Spanish citizenship since the law was first passed). Still, reclaimed citizenship is clearly an option that some Jews are interested in pursuing. And when asked about their motivation, several cite Trump.

“As anxiety about the election grew and grew, an increasing number of individuals have reached out to me,” David Young, a lawyer who specializes in seeking restitution for the descendants of German Jewish refugees, told me in an email. He estimates that he began receiving three times as many phone calls as usual after the election. “It used to be maybe once a week, and now it is daily.”

Sarina Roffé, who helps Sephardic Jewish families prepare some of the documents needed to file for Spanish and Portuguese citizenship via The Sephardic Heritage Project, tells a similar story. “People contacted me right after the election saying ‘I don’t want to live here,’” she said. “Even in my own family.”

The United States isn’t the only country in which Jews are looking to reclaim citizenship elsewhere because of their government’s actions. The Guardian reported that among British Jews, applications for reclaimed German citizenship increased 20-fold after Brexit, while applications for Portuguese citizenship jumped 80-fold. Some of these applicants are motivated by a desire to maintain citizenship and the right to work in the European Union.

None of the Americans I spoke to had immediate plans to leave the country. Rather, they were seeking citizenship in Europe as a kind of “back-up plan,” Young said. He also told me that his clientele has shifted: Instead of hearing predominantly from young people looking to study or work in Europe, he is being contacted by older people applying with their families.

Masie, a theater producer and consultant, said his decision was part strategy, part symbolism. He had a sense it would help his business overseas if he were to have a European passport. He also felt it would bring full circle the story of his father, who never thought poorly of Germany even after being removed from his government job and forced to leave the country, Masie said.

“I don’t know if I’m ever going to move to Berlin, but it certainly is a statement of my discomfort,” Masie told me. It’s also a second echo of his family history, given that Masie’s father moved to Spain for two years after Richard Nixon was reelected in 1972. “He thought, ‘you never know.’”