The nation's highest court agrees to consider legal challenge questioning citizenship by birth.

The top court has decided to review a landmark case that questions a longstanding guarantee: birthright citizenship for people born in the United States.

On day one in office this January, the administration enacted a directive aiming to terminate birthright citizenship, but the action was halted by lower courts after legal challenges were initiated.

The Supreme Court's eventual ruling will ultimately uphold citizenship rights for the offspring of migrants who are in the US undocumented or on temporary visas, or it will overturn those rights entirely.

Next, the justices will calendar a session to hear oral arguments between the administration and plaintiffs, which comprise parents who are immigrants and their young children.

The Legal Foundation

For more than 150 years, the Fourteenth Amendment has established the doctrine that anyone born in the United States is a US citizen, with specific conditions for children born to diplomats and personnel of occupying armies.

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

The disputed directive sought to deny citizenship to the children of people who are whether in the US without legal status 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 provide immediate citizenship to anyone born within their borders.