The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case over whether the long-standing constitutional right to guaranteed citizenship for those born in the US will continue.
On his first day in office in January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship, but the move was blocked by lower courts after it was challenged over its constitutionality.
The Supreme Court's final decision will either uphold citizenship rights for migrant children in the U.S. illegally or on temporary visas or overturn them.
The justices will then set a date to hear oral arguments between the government and the plaintiffs, who include immigrant parents and their children.
For nearly 160 years, the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution established the principle that everyone born in the country is a US citizen, with the exception of children born to diplomats and foreign military forces.
The language of the amendment reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
Trump's order aims to deny citizenship to the children of people who are in the US either illegally or in the country on temporary visas. It's part of the Trump administration's broader efforts to reform the country's immigration system and combat what it called “significant threats to national security and public safety.”
The administration argues that the 14th Amendment's “subject to its jurisdiction” clause means the amendment excludes children of people who are not permanently or lawfully present in the country.
Cecilia Wang, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing plaintiffs in the case, told BBC news partner CBS that no president can change the 14th Amendment's fundamental promise of citizenship.
“For more than 150 years, it has been the law and our national tradition that everyone born in the United States is a citizen at birth,” Ms. Wang said in a statement.
“We look forward to settling this issue once and for all in the Supreme Court this term,” she added.
The United States is one of about 30 countries (mostly American) that grant automatic citizenship to anyone born on its soil.
After Trump's executive order was challenged in court, several federal court judges ruled it violated the Constitution, and two federal circuit courts of appeals upheld injunctions blocking the order from going into effect.
Trump then went to the Supreme Court to challenge the injunctions. In June, the court ruled in favor of Trump that the injunctions issued by lower courts exceeded their authority, although it did not address the issue of birthright citizenship itself.
The 14th Amendment was passed after the American Civil War to resolve the issue of citizenship for freed former slaves born in America.
U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argued that the amendment was passed “to provide citizenship to recently freed slaves and their children, rather than to the children of aliens temporarily visiting the United States or illegal aliens.”
He said it was a “misconception” that being born on U.S. soil confers citizenship and said that understanding has had “devastating consequences.”
About 250,000 children were born to immigrant parents in the U.S. in 2016, down 36% from the peak in 2007, according to the Pew Research Center.
By 2022, the latest year for which data is available, 1.2 million U.S. citizens were born to undocumented immigrant parents, according to Pew.
A study released in May by the Migration Policy Institute think tank and the Pennsylvania State University Institute for Population Research found that eliminating birthright citizenship could increase the undocumented population in the United States by an additional 2.7 million by 2045 and by 5.4 million by 2075.
