HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Yasir Billoo has never seen his law partner Zahra Khan cry. In fact, Billoo has never even heard about the 37-year-old mother of three shedding a tear.
But this week, something changed.
Khan, an Iranian-American, was in tears when she learned President Donald Trump signed an order Friday banning citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days, all refugees for 120 days and indefinitely suspending the refugee-admission process from Syria.
"At first it took all of Saturday to digest what was going on," she said. "I think at that time I was emotionally reacting to what was going on. I found myself crying a few times. I spoke to my parents overseas. My kids were asking what was going to happen."
Billoo said he can empathize with Khan's pain.
"It's tough to see what she's feeling right now because her family is a great story about immigrants doing well in this country and thriving," Billoo said. "They are a model immigrant family and are being penalized because she was born in the wrong country."
After the reality set in, Khan decided to take action.
"It's not enough to just react and get upset and get sad," Khan said. "You don’t sit in a corner and feel sorry for yourself. We live in a world where you have to stand up for yourself, you have to put your foot down and you need to be proactive."
Khan has volunteered with the American Civil Liberties Union to help translate. She has also been searching for organizations that are fighting the order.
"I know one of the big things they talked about was contacting senators about withholding consent," Khan said. "This is important to me because it affects me directly because I am a dual citizen and right now as it stands, I am being told by friends who are immigration attorneys that it’s not advisable for me to travel out of the country because I may not be able to come back."
And beyond the direct impact, Khan is concerned about the refugees, green card holders and others who are impacted by the order.
In the 2016 fiscal year, 36,722 refugees were relocated to the United States from the seven countries mentioned in the executive order, according to the Refugee Processing Center, run by the U.S Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. That breaks down to 9,020 from Somalia, 1,458 from Sudan, 3,750 from Iran, 9,880 from Iraq, one from Libya, 12,587 from Syria and 26 from Yemen.
"This is about educating more and more people so they know the facts and how they can get involved and fight this, and me personally doing what I can do to join this movement of people across the nation," Khan said.
One silver lining that Khan has found is the amount of support that she’s felt among friends who are outside of her religious and ethnic community.
She said she's had more non-Muslim friends reach out to her than Muslim friends.
One of the friends who contracted her was Chinue Fortson, with whom Khan went to college.
"I was sad," Fortson said. "To be honest, it was an emotional conversation. I am a lawyer, she's a lawyer. We’re not very emotional people. We are practical people and the conversation, it became emotional. She said 'What do I do?' I said, 'I don't know, but don’t leave the country.' I said don’t leave until we know more. That's the one piece of advice I could offer. It was 'don't change the status quo until we know more.'"
Fortson also took to Facebook and posted a Local10.com article about Khan and her family, and wrote a caption that read in part, "This is not freedom. This is not America. Today and for all the days to come, I stand with her and her family."
Fortson isn't alone.
Khan's friend Debra Kronowitz-Edelman made it a point to reach out and let her know that her "Jewish friend" will always be on her side.
"She has always had our back and we have hers," she said. "People should not live in fear."
Khan said she is thankful for the support.
"It's been amazing knowing that I have their support," Khan said. "I do have the support of other Americans and I am not going to be intimidated."