Published March 19, 2024
Decision on gun rights for illegal immigrants has divided 2nd Amendment community
A federal judge in Illinois has found that the Constitution protects the gun rights of noncitizens who enter the United States illegally.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman on Friday ruled that a federal prohibition on illegal immigrants owning firearms is unconstitutional as applied to defendant Heriberto Carbajal-Flores. The court found that while the federal ban is “facially constitutional,” there is no historical tradition of firearm regulation that permits the government to deprive a noncitizen who has never been convicted of a violent crime from exercising his Second Amendment rights.
“The noncitizen possession statute … violates the Second Amendment as applied to Carbajal-Flores,” the judge wrote. “Thus, the Court grants Carbajal-Flores’ motion to dismiss.”
Coleman, a President Obama appointee, cited the landmark Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), which established a new standard to determine whether a law violates the Second Amendment. Since Bruen, a multitude of federal and state gun control measures have been challenged in courts with mixed results.
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SOURCE: www.foxnews.com
RELATED: Illinois judge rules illegal migrants can carry guns
Published March 19, 2024
A federal judge in Illinois earlier this month ruled that a Mexican man who was living in the U.S. illegally had a constitutional right to own a firearm for self-defense.
In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman dismissed charges against Heriberto Carbajal-Flores, who was arrested in 2020 for violating a federal law that prohibits undocumented immigrants from possessing guns.
“Carbajal-Flores contends that he received and used the handgun solely for self-protection and protection of property during a time of documented civil unrest in the Spring of 2020,” the Northern District of Illinois judge wrote in her ruling.
The ruling sets up a potential Supreme Court case to determine the extent of Second Amendment rights for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. The high court has issued a series of rulings over the past 15 years that have expanded gun rights.
“Congress would have to be a little bit more powerful here because there’s no question that the Constitution applies to people who are not here illegally,” said Shanlon Wu, a former federal prosecutor in a Tuesday interview on NewsNation’s “On Balance.” “The problem here is you need to draw the statute more narrowly.”
