America's top judicial body will consider legal challenge disputing citizenship by birth.
The nation's highest court has agreed to take on a pivotal case that challenges a historic guarantee: automatic citizenship for those born on American soil.
On day one in office this winter, the President issued an executive order aiming to end the policy, but the move was subsequently blocked by lower courts after lawsuits were brought forward.
The Supreme Court's eventual ruling will either uphold citizenship rights for the offspring of foreign nationals who are in the US without authorization or on non-immigrant visas, or it will overturn them entirely.
Next, the judges will schedule a date to hear the case between the administration and the suing parties, which comprise parents who are immigrants and their young children.
A Constitutional Cornerstone
For over a century and a half, the Fourteenth Amendment has enshrined the principle that anyone born in the country is a American citizen, with exceptions for children born to embassy personnel and members of occupying armies.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
The contested executive order sought to withhold citizenship to the offspring of people who are whether in the US in violation of immigration law or are in the country on temporary visas.
The United States belongs to a group of about a minority of states – primarily in the North and South America – that grant automatic citizenship to anyone born in their territory.
