America's top judicial body agrees to hear legal challenge challenging citizenship by birth.

The nation's highest court has decided to review a significant case that challenges a historic constitutional right: guaranteed citizenship for people born within US borders.

On the inaugural day in office this winter, President Donald Trump issued an executive order aiming to terminate this practice, but the move was struck down by the judiciary after legal challenges were brought forward.

The Supreme Court's final judgment will either support citizenship rights for the offspring of migrants who are in the US undocumented or on short-term permits, or it will overturn them altogether.

Next, the court will calendar a session to hear the case between the administration and claimants, which involve foreign-born parents and their newborns.

The Legal Foundation

For more than 150 years, the Fourteenth Amendment has established the principle that anyone born in the nation is a citizen, with specific conditions for children born to diplomats and personnel of foreign military forces.

"Anyone 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 withhold 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 – primarily in the Western Hemisphere – that award immediate citizenship to all those born on their soil.