America's top judicial body agrees to review lawsuit challenging birthright citizenship.

The nation's highest court has will hear a landmark case that challenges a longstanding constitutional right: guaranteed citizenship for people born on American soil.

On day one in office this winter, President Donald Trump issued an executive order aiming to halt this practice, but the action was subsequently blocked by the judiciary after lawsuits were initiated.

The Supreme Court's final judgment will either affirm citizenship rights for the infants of foreign nationals who are in the US undocumented or on short-term permits, or it will end those rights entirely.

Next, the court will set a time to hear arguments between the administration and claimants, which comprise immigrant parents and their newborns.

A Constitutional Cornerstone

For more than 150 years, the Fourteenth Amendment has established the principle that all individuals born in the nation is a citizen, with certain exclusions for children born to embassy personnel and members of invading forces.

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

The challenged presidential order sought to refuse citizenship to the offspring of people who are either in the US without legal status or are in the country on short-term status.

The United States belongs to a group of about a minority of states – largely in the Western Hemisphere – that grant immediate citizenship to all those born in their territory.