\n In the 26 years since she fled Colombia for the United States, \u201cPilar\u201d has received her working papers, graduated high school, established a career as a paralegal and purchased a home in Florida.\n <\/p>\n
\n But under the legal theory President Donald Trump is defending at the Supreme Court<\/a> to end automatic birthright citizenship, the 35-year-old mother who asked to be identified as Pilar, is \u201ctemporarily present.\u201d And if the 6-3 conservative court allows Trump\u2019s executive order to take hold, her future children would effectively become stateless.\n <\/p>\n \n When the Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday over Trump\u2019s birthright citizenship executive order<\/a>, the administration\u2019s top appellate attorney is expected to focus on illegal immigration and \u201cbirth tourism.\u201d What has received far less attention are the millions of people, like Pilar, who have lived in the country legally for years or even decades, but who would nevertheless be swept up by the policy.\n <\/p>\n \n Some are permitted to live and work in the United States through humanitarian programs, such as the Obama-era DACA policy<\/a>. Others have been waiting for years for the government to review asylum claims. By one estimate, if Trump\u2019s order took effect, the children of as many as 6.5 million people who are living in the US legally could be denied citizenship.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI don\u2019t have a paper that says I\u2019m an American,\u201d Pilar, whose child is part of the class action before the court, told CNN in an interview, \u201cbut this is all I know.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Pilar and others interviewed for this story sought anonymity because they fear repercussions from speaking out during a time when the Trump administration has cracked down on both illegal and legal immigration.\n <\/p>\n \n The plaintiffs challenging the administration are also anonymous in court records. The name \u201cBarbara\u201d in Trump v. Barbara \u2013 the appeal now pending before the Supreme Court \u2013 is a pseudonym for a Honduran national seeking asylum.\n <\/p>\n \n The birthright citizenship case, among the most significant the Supreme Court will consider this year, deals with a central promise Trump made on the campaign trail. The Justice Department is asking the high court to sign off on an executive order the president signed on the first day of his second term that reimagines the way the 14th Amendment\u2019s citizenship clause has been understood for more than a century.\n <\/p>\n \n Every other court to consider that request has denied it.\n <\/p>\n \n The case turns on the meaning of the 14th Amendment\u2019s citizenship clause, which states that \u201call persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.\u201d Trump\u2019s attorneys have trained their focus on the second part of that clause: \u201csubject to the jurisdiction thereof.\u201d That line, they say, excludes immigrants in the country illegally.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cChildren of temporarily present aliens are not completely subject to the United States\u2019 political jurisdiction and so do not become citizens by birth,\u201d US Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court in written arguments earlier this year. \u201cIn the debates leading to the amendment\u2019s ratification, members of Congress recognized that children of aliens \u2018temporarily in this country\u2019 are not citizens.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Trump and his allies say the language was never intended to automatically entitle foreign nationals to citizenship for their children. When the framers included the words \u201csubject to the jurisdiction thereof,\u201d they say, that meant that birthright citizenship would be extended to people who have a \u201cdirect and immediate allegiance\u201d to the United States. One clear way to establish that allegiance, the government says, is to be \u201cdomiciled\u201d in the country and not just allegedly passing through.\n <\/p>\n \n But the groups fighting Trump\u2019s order say none of those words \u2014 allegiance or domicile \u2014 are anywhere in the text of the 14th Amendment. And, they say, it\u2019s hard to argue that people like Pilar are not domiciled in the United States.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cDomicile means living somewhere with the intent to remain there indefinitely or permanently,\u201d said Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who will square off with the government during the oral arguments Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIf people\u2019s citizenship depends on whether their parents intended at the time of their birth to reside in the US permanently, how would you even implement that?\u201d Wang added. \u201cIt depends on subjective intent.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n A DACA recipient, Pilar was brought to the United States by her mother when she was 9 years old, fleeing instability and violence that rocked Colombia at the time. She was pregnant when Trump was inaugurated and described being \u201ca little freaked out\u201d when he made good on his promise to sign the executive order. When her daughter was born late last year, Pilar rushed to get a passport for her.\n <\/p>\n \n Now, she wonders if she\u2019ll be able to do so if she decides to have another child.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI come from a big family,\u201d she said. \u201cOur dream was always to have three or four kids, but now I think about it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Immigrant advocates say there is a disconnect between the administration\u2019s stated goal and how the order would work in practice.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe government wants to focus on birthright tourism as though that\u2019s the majority of people,\u201d said Conchita Cruz, co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project. \u201cThe majority of people are people like Pilar who live here legally and who have a life in the United States.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n For many immigrants living in the US legally, returning to their homeland isn\u2019t an option.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cLily\u201d came to the United States from Ukraine four years ago after Russia attacked her city in the early days of the full-scale conflict between the two countries. She is in the United States legally under a humanitarian program the Biden administration created in 2022 called Uniting for Ukraine<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Last year, Trump discussed possibly ending that program for some 240,000 Ukrainians.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019re not looking to hurt anybody, we\u2019re certainly not looking to hurt them, and I\u2019m looking at that,\u201d Trump told reporters at the White House<\/a> last March. \u201cThere were some people that think that\u2019s appropriate, and some people don\u2019t, and I\u2019ll be making the decision pretty soon.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n But an announcement never came and Lily and tens of thousands of others have continued to benefit from the program as the war continues. Returning to Ukraine, she told CNN, would be \u201clike a death penalty.\u201d\n <\/p>\n