The nation's highest court agrees to review legal challenge challenging citizenship by birth.
The top court has decided to review a landmark case that challenges a historic principle: automatic citizenship for people born in the United States.
On his first day in office this January, the administration issued an executive order aiming to halt this practice, but the order was subsequently blocked by federal courts after constitutional questions were initiated.
The Supreme Court's ultimate decision will ultimately affirm citizenship rights for the offspring of migrants who are in the US illegally or on short-term permits, or it will overturn them altogether.
Next, the court will set a time to hear the case between the government and the suing parties, which comprise immigrant parents and their infants.
The Legal Foundation
For more than 150 years, the Constitutional amendment has enshrined the principle that every person born in the nation is a citizen, with specific conditions for children born to embassy personnel and members of invading forces.
"Anyone born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
The contested directive sought to refuse citizenship to the children of people who are whether in the US illegally or are in the country on temporary visas.
The United States belongs to a group of about three dozen nations – largely in the Americas – that provide automatic citizenship to any person born on their soil.
