Dinesh Hooda’s 10-year-old daughter was born in the U.S., has lived in Frisco all her life and pledges allegiance to the flag with her hand over her heart each morning at school.

Still, he worries — more than he did 10 years ago — about whether or not she’ll be considered American.

“You never know right? It shakes you up as an immigrant. You never know what future protocols are coming, because I came from this path, my daughter became a citizen through this path,” he said.

After President Donald Trump issued an executive order to change the requirements of birthright citizenship, even people who live in North Texas legally like Hooda, say they are worried about future actions the Trump administration might take.

The order has been a shock to many in the South Asian community in North Texas, which accounts for a significant portion of the region’s Asian American population.

Under the order, announced Jan. 20, a child born to a mother who is unlawfully in the country or in the country temporarily and their father is not a citizen or “lawful” permanent resident would not be granted citizenship. A day after Trump announced the order, U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, R-Woodville, introduced a bill that would restrict automatic birthright citizenship.

A federal judge in Seattle has temporarily blocked the order, setting it up for a court challenge. Last week, Trump told a group of reporters in he thinks the Supreme Court will side with him on the case, according to a USA Today report.

In August, Pew Research reported about two-thirds of the estimated 4.8 million people of Indian descent in the United States were immigrants.

Many people in the Indian community are in the U.S. under student and work visas, said Chintan Patel, president of Indian American Impact, a national advocacy organization.

India accounted for 279,386 — more than 72 percent — of the 386,318 H1-B petitions approved between October 2022 to September 2023, according to a Department of Homeland Security report to congress last year.

As of the 2022-2023 academic year, people from India accounted for more than 29 percent of the 1,126,690 international students in the U.S., according to the Open Doors report. The report is funded by the U.S. Department of State.

Additionally, people of Indian descent here on employment-based visas, including E-2 and E-3, face disproportionately long wait times to get their green cards because of the large number of applicants from the country and federal caps on visas issued to each nation.

Under Trump’s order, birthright citizenship would apply to the children of the millions who are on the back log, Patel said.

Nearly 2 million people of Indian descent were waiting for an employment-based green card, according to an August 2023 study by the Cato Institute. More than 400,000 of them will die before obtaining that permanent residency, the institute found.

About 480,000 people identified themselves as “Asian Indian” in Texas, according to 2022 U.S. Census data. Of those, more than 225,000 were from Dallas, Denton, Collin, Rockwall and Tarrant counties.

Leaders of organizations that work closely with South Asian communities often point to education opportunities and the health of the Texas job market as a major pull factor.

Hooda, former president of the India Association of North Texas, said he was still on his H1-B visa when his wife had their daughter.

Many who are coming to the country under student or work visas have sacrificed time and money in order to build a better life in America, and for many, that means being able to have a family here, Hooda said.

He fears the limits to birthright citizenship championed by Trump will take that opportunity away.

“It is definitely heartbreaking to hear this, especially when you are a legal immigrant in this community,” he said.

A lack of clarity around the executive order and its potential impact has created confusion among many in the community. Rajiv Kamat, current president of the India association, received dozens calls each day from community members immediately following Trump’s move on birthright citizenship. Most were unsure of what the order means for them, Kamat said.

“When people come legally and they make their life over here, why should there be restrictions?” Kamat said.

Many Indian immigrants were surprised the executive order included people working or studying in the country under visas, said Suresh Manduva, board chairman of the Telugu Association of North Texas. Telugu is a language spoken in many parts of southern India.

He said about 25-30% of the Telugu-speaking community in North Texas are work visa holders with a significant portion in the tech industry.

“People are hoping, because it’s an executive order, it will be stopped legally,” he said.

Some in the Asian community support Trump’s moves on immigration, and see it as the president making good on his campaign promises, said Sanjay Narayan, board member of the Texas Asian Republican Assembly.

The 14 Amendment, ratified in 1868, states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

Narayan said he agrees with Trump’s executive order in its “totality,” and thinks the drafters of the amendment did not intend for the protection — many decades later — to extend to people who are in the country illegally, he said.

“I don’t know how this executive order is going to be implemented with respect to people who are in the green card process or in the process of seeking naturalization is going to play out,” Narayan said. “But I think the impetus of trying to do something about it and testing the legal limits of this interpretation of the 14th Amendment is appropriate.”

State Rep. Salman Bhojani, D-Euless, disagrees with Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship. Such a sweeping change should go through the legislative process, Bhojani said.

“People are on their way — paying attorneys a lot of money and following the law to a tee — and now they’ve not gotten their green card, their kids are not going to be citizens?” he said.

Multiple exit polls during and after the 2024 presidential election suggested a rightward shift among Asian Americans. Bhojani said he thinks Trump’s recent executive order will hurt support for the Republican Party among South Asian Americans.

Bhojani thinks Trump’s win of the popular vote has made him “more emboldened” to act on immigration issues during his second term as president.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that we, as a country, have certain shared values and ethics that we cannot compromise and we need to deal with people humanely,” Bhojani said.

The Nepalese community, which also has a significant population in North Texas, is also alarmed at the push to end birthright citizenship.

About 30% of the Nepalese population in North Texas are recent immigrants, said Rajendra Wagle, president of the Nepalese Society of Texas. Along with those on student visas, thousands of Nepalese are in North Texas under temporary protected status following a 2015 earthquake.

“People are going to be in fear,” Wagle said. “Those people don’t have documents, those who are asylum seekers, they’re going to wonder what is going to happen to them next.”

At a personal level, Trump’s executive orders send a hostile message to all immigrants and is a “narrow” view of who gets to be and feel American, said Dinesh Sharma, a past president of the society. Sharma has run in the Democratic primary in Texas House District 92.

If birthright citizenship is ended, Sharma said he worries those who got their citizenship through the same process will feel that their citizenship is diminished, or a “wrong way” to be American.

“When I had my son, I was not a citizen, and he became a citizen before me,” Sharma said. “Now, if somebody else does not get that right, he may have a feeling that his citizenship wasn’t the right way.”