The nation's highest court will hear legal challenge disputing automatic citizenship for those born in the US.

The US Supreme Court has agreed to take on a pivotal case that challenges a historic principle: automatic citizenship for people born in the United States.

On his first day in office this January, the administration enacted a directive aiming to terminate the policy, but the order was subsequently blocked by federal courts after constitutional questions were brought forward.

The Supreme Court's final judgment will either uphold citizenship rights for the offspring of migrants who are in the US without authorization or on short-term permits, or it will end those rights completely.

Next, the judges will set a time to hear arguments between the government and plaintiffs, which comprise parents who are immigrants and their newborns.

The 14th Amendment

For more than 150 years, the Fourteenth Amendment has enshrined the rule that anyone born in the United States is a citizen, with certain exclusions for children born to diplomats and members of foreign military forces.

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

The contested directive sought to withhold citizenship to the children of people who are whether in the US illegally or are in the country on temporary visas.

The United States is one of about three dozen nations – mostly in the North and South America – that provide immediate citizenship to any person born on their soil.