America's top judicial body agrees to review legal challenge disputing citizenship by birth.
The US Supreme Court has agreed to take on a pivotal case that questions a longstanding constitutional right: guaranteed citizenship for individuals born on American soil.
On his first day in office this winter, the administration enacted a directive aiming to terminate the policy, but the action was subsequently blocked by federal courts after lawsuits were filed.
The Supreme Court's eventual decision will ultimately affirm citizenship rights for the children of foreign nationals who are in the US illegally or on short-term permits, or it will nullify them entirely.
Next, the justices will schedule a date to hear arguments between the government and claimants, which include foreign-born parents and their newborns.
A Constitutional Cornerstone
For over a century and a half, the Fourteenth Amendment has enshrined the doctrine that every person born in the country is a US citizen, with certain exclusions for children born to foreign diplomats and personnel of foreign military forces.
"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 refuse citizenship to the children of people who are whether in the US in violation of immigration law or are in the country on non-permanent visas.
The United States belongs to a group of about three dozen nations – mostly in the Western Hemisphere – that award automatic citizenship to any person born in their territory.
