My husband was trying to set up a meeting with a professional colleague who also is a friend of ours. After several attempts to find a date, the colleague had to put it all on hold.

He had been scheduled to be out of the country on several of the dates suggested, but said that his attorney has told him he must not undertake ANY travel at all. This friend, a very accomplished figure in his field, is from an Arab country that is currently not on the list (but one of the ones that should have been--I am not naming names here to preserve his identity) but had lived and worked in the UK for many years. He came to the US a year and a half ago or so to take up a position at an American cultural institution (again, not naming names). He is in total and utter despair about all this—his entire career depends on frequent foreign travel—and he said he may just leave the US and return to Britain permanently, because he can't endure living here under these conditions.

There are legions of people across the US feeling this right now: terrified and despairing. We may see a very big "brain drain" of people like our friend, who simply cannot live under these circumstances.

Just tallying attorney's personal reports from a smattering of airports and ports starts to add up very very quickly. How many international airports are in the U.S? How many ports? A number of passengers on several cruise ships near where I live were impacted over the weekend. Has to be much more.