“Did you hear?” my mother’s coworker whispers conspiratorially, leaning over into my mom’s office cubicle as she spoke. My mother, a woman who works in the health care industry and usually not prone to gossip, played along. “Hear what?” she replied. As it was the end of January in 2017, the only exciting thing that happened around work was when the copier broke. So my mother wasn’t expecting much of a story.

“Well,” the coworker began, “A poor doctor over at the hospital was seen sobbing after he heard about the travel ban this morning. I guess him and most of his family come from one of the banned countries and he hasn’t been able to contact them. Poor man. Can you imagine?”

My mom slowly shook her head. Emotions of anger and pity simmered within my mom as her coworker went back to her desk. Later that evening, I saw those emotions bubble to the surface over a Skype call.

My mom looked at me, her gaze unwavering, and said, “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you have decided to become an immigration attorney.” At this, she turned away, sadness in her eyes. “We’re gonna need people like you.”

On January 27, 2017, President Trump signed an executive action that temporarily banned people from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia from entering the United States. The executive action also gave local government the power to decide whether or not refugees would be allowed to settle in their communities. Its goal: to protect Americans from jihadists.

This travel ban wasn’t the only one to be signed into effect. In March 2017, President Trump signed another executive action that temporarily banned people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States. The Supreme Court will decide its legality this month.

Late night talk show hosts, such as Trevor Noah from “The Daily Show,” had some fun at pointing out the differences between the travel ban from January and the one from March. In his March 16, 2017 show, Trevor Noah mocked the differences in the bans with a map that highlighted the affected countries. “So the White House went back to the drawing board and came up with a new travel ban that’s totally different.” As he says this, Iraq is no longer highlighted on the map. “Wow,” he proclaims with great sarcasm, “so different.”

No matter what you think about President Trump’s policies the latest travel ban has or will soon affect the health care industry. The doctor my mom told me about is not alone in his worries. 7,000 doctors working in the United States were trained in one of the countries impacted by the most recent travel ban. These doctors see 14 million patients each year. States such as Michigan, Ohio, California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Florida have a high concentration of physicians from the banned countries working there.

What does the latest travel ban mean for those who live in those states? Will there be physician shortages? What about the specialists who are from the banned countries? Where else will people find a pediatric pulmonologist who specializes in critical care? And one that they like for that matter.

What does the latest travel ban mean for those who don’t have high concentrations of physicians from the banned countries living in their state? Will people from the affected states flock to those that aren’t, so that they can still receive healthcare treatment in a timely manner? How will this affect the wait time for patients who need to see a doctor or a specialist?

All of these are questions whose answers have not yet been determined. As a citizen of the United States and as a future immigration attorney, I can only hope that justice prevails.