Obama-appointee and liberal Illinois federal judge rules illegal migrants can carry guns legally
A federal judge in Illinois has ruled that an illegal immigrant was wrongly banned from owning a firearm.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman, an Obama appointee, ruled earlier this month that an illegal migrant living in the U.S. had violated his Second Amendment rights when he was charged with possessing a gun.
Heriberto Carbajal-Flores was charged by prosecutors under U.S. Code 18 § 922, which prohibits illegal immigrants from carrying weapons or ammunition.
In her ruling, the judge with a liberal track record wrote: “The noncitizen property statute, 18 USC § 922(g)(5), violates the Second Amendment as applied to Carbajal-Flores.
‘The court therefore grants Carbajal-Flores’ request to dismiss.’
U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman, an Obama appointee, ruled earlier this month that an illegal migrant living in the U.S. had violated his Second Amendment rights when he was charged with possessing a gun
Illegal migrants climb the cyclone fence installed by the Texas National Guard as hundreds of migrants line up along the border wall separating Mexico and the United States awaiting processing
Carbajal-Flores’ defense team made the argument that the government failed to show that 18 USC § 922(g)(5) was “part of the historical tradition demarcating the outer limits of the right to keep and bear arms.”
In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors must be able to show that the regulations are “consistent with this country’s historic tradition of firearms regulation.”
The defense’s argument was enough to convince Coleman that the charges should be dismissed.
“Lifelong disarmament of an individual on the basis of alienation or nationality alone has no roots in the history and tradition of the United States,” Carbajal-Flores’ lawyers said.
In her statement, Coleman acknowledges that Coleman is a “non-citizen,” although she shies away from harsher language than that.
“The court notes, however, that Carbajal-Flores has never been convicted of a crime, a crime of violence, or a crime involving the use of a weapon,” she wrote.
“Even in the present case, Carbajal-Flores claims that he received and used the gun solely for self-protection and property protection during a time of documented civil unrest in the spring of 2020,” she added, likely referring to the riots that swept through the country after the murder of George Floyd.
The ruling has sparked a plethora of reactions within the legal community, including some Second Amendment absolutists who say that “the people” the Framers refer to in the amendment include those who are in the country illegally.
Coleman has presided over a number of high-profile cases in Illinois, including a February 2014 ruling that allowed same-sex couples to marry in the state.
The ruling took effect in June of that year, two years before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriages in all fifty states.
Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman (center left) swears in 42nd Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner (center right) on January 12, 2015
In an aerial view, immigrants wait under an international bridge after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico and passing through coils of barbed wire on March 17, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas
The Biden administration has struggled mightily with illegal migration into the country, and is facing additional heat from the public and political class in the wake of the murder of Georgian student Laken Riley by an illegal immigrant.
Several other illegal migrants have been arrested in recent weeks for crimes including the sexual assault of a minor
Recently, the government admitted to flying 320,000 illegal migrants into the US to reduce the number of visible border crossings currently terrorizing border towns in the southern United States.
Customs and Border Protection has refused to release crucial information about a program that last year arranged flights for thousands of undocumented immigrants from foreign airports directly to American cities.
The revelation came after a controversy over a 2022 transport program in which the government used taxpayer money to transport migrants across the country on discreet overnight flights.
President Joe Biden expanded the CBP One app to allow aliens to seek asylum from their home countries — then secretly fly them from foreign airports to U.S. airports
The program was part of Biden’s expansion of the CBP One app, which launched early last year.
Under Biden’s expansion, migrants could apply for asylum from their home countries through the app.
But the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) notes that transporting these migrants directly to the US is one of the app’s lesser-known uses.
Aliens who cannot legally enter the US use CBP One to apply for travel authorization and temporary humanitarian release from those airports.