US Supreme Court agrees to consider legal challenge disputing automatic citizenship for those born in the US.

The nation's highest court has decided to review a landmark case that puts to the test a century-old guarantee: guaranteed citizenship for individuals born in the United States.

On his first day in office this winter, the administration signed an order aiming to end the policy, but the order was subsequently blocked by federal courts after legal challenges were brought forward.

The Supreme Court's final decision will ultimately support citizenship rights for the offspring of foreign nationals who are in the US illegally or on temporary visas, or it will end those rights entirely.

Next, the justices will calendar a session to hear the case between the administration and the suing parties, which comprise parents who are immigrants and their infants.

A Constitutional Cornerstone

For nearly 160 years, the Fourteenth Amendment has established the doctrine that every person born in the country is a American citizen, with certain exclusions for children born to embassy personnel and members of occupying armies.

"Every individual born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."

The disputed presidential order sought to deny citizenship to the children of people who are either in the US in violation of immigration law or are in the country on short-term status.

The United States is one of about a minority of states – mostly in the Western Hemisphere – that provide automatic citizenship to anyone born within their borders.