The nation's highest court has decided to consider case questioning citizenship by birth.

The US Supreme Court has decided to review a significant case that challenges a historic guarantee: birthright citizenship for those born in the United States.

On day one in office this January, the administration signed an order aiming to terminate this practice, but the order was halted by the judiciary after constitutional questions were filed.

The Supreme Court's eventual judgment will ultimately support citizenship rights for the children of foreign nationals who are in the US undocumented or on non-immigrant visas, or it will overturn them altogether.

Next, the judges will schedule a date to hear arguments between the federal government and plaintiffs, which involve foreign-born parents and their newborns.

The Legal Foundation

For more than 150 years, the Fourteenth Amendment has established the doctrine that all individuals born in the nation is a US citizen, with certain exclusions for children born to foreign diplomats and personnel 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 challenged presidential order sought to withhold citizenship to the children of people who are either in the US without legal status or are in the country on short-term status.

The United States is one of about 30 countries – primarily in the Western Hemisphere – that provide automatic citizenship to anyone born in their territory.