The nation's highest court agrees to review legal challenge challenging citizenship by birth.

The top court has decided to review a significant case that challenges a century-old constitutional right: automatic 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 birthright citizenship, but the order was subsequently blocked by federal courts after constitutional questions were brought forward.

The Supreme Court's final ruling will either affirm citizenship rights for the children of foreign nationals who are in the US illegally or on temporary visas, or it will nullify those rights altogether.

Next, the judges will calendar a session to hear oral arguments between the administration and the suing parties, which involve immigrant parents and their young children.

The 14th Amendment

For over a century and a half, the Fourteenth Amendment has codified the doctrine that anyone born in the United States is a citizen, with certain exclusions for children born to embassy personnel and personnel of foreign military forces.

"All persons 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 offspring of people who are either in the US illegally or are in the country on short-term status.

The United States is among about three dozen nations – primarily in the Americas – that award automatic citizenship to anyone born within their borders.