The nation's highest court agrees to consider case challenging birthright citizenship.
The US Supreme Court has agreed to take on a landmark case that challenges a longstanding principle: guaranteed citizenship for individuals born in the United States.
On the inaugural day in office this winter, President Donald Trump enacted a directive aiming to terminate this practice, but the action was subsequently blocked by lower courts after legal challenges were filed.
The Supreme Court's ultimate ruling will either uphold citizenship rights for the infants of immigrants who are in the US without authorization or on short-term permits, or it will overturn those rights entirely.
Next, the court will set a time to hear the case between the federal government and the suing parties, which comprise parents who are immigrants and their young children.
The Legal Foundation
For over a century and a half, the Fourteenth Amendment has enshrined the principle that every person born in the nation is a citizen, with certain exclusions for children born to embassy personnel and members 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 deny citizenship to the offspring 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 is among about three dozen nations – mostly in the Western Hemisphere – that grant instant citizenship to all those born on their soil.
