Judge: ‘Non-Violent’ Illegal Aliens Deserve Second Amendment Rights

By José Niño

Can illegal aliens enjoy the benefits of the Second Amendment? Apparently, United States District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman thinks so.

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On March 8, 2024, Coleman ruled that the federal ban on illegal aliens owning guns is unconstitutional. The case in question dealt with Heriberto Carbajal-Flores, an illegal who was charged with possessing a firearm while illegally or unlawfully residing in the United States. Carbajal-Flores possessed a handgun in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood on June 1, 2020. He was ultimately charged for possessing a firearm as a non-citizen.

In his first two attempts, Carbajal-Flores was unsuccessful in removing his indictment. However, the third time was the charm. Coleman issued the following ruling:

The government argues that Carbajal-Flores is a noncitizen who is unlawfully present in this country. The court notes, however, that Carbajal-Flores has never been convicted of a felony, a violent crime or a crime involving the use of a weapon. Even in the present case, 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 noncitizen possession statute, 18 U.S.C. section 922(g)(5), violates the Second Amendment as applied to Carbajal-Flores,” Coleman added in the US v. Carbajal-Flores ruling. “Thus, the court grants Carbajal-Flores’ motion to dismiss.”

In effect, Coleman ruled that the prohibition did not align with America’s historical tradition of gun control regulation. This standard was set forth by the Supreme Court’s landmark New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen ruling of June 23, 2022.

Since the Bruen decision of 2022, the courts have struck down several forms of federal and state gun-control measures established by the court. One of the key questions that many of these post-Bruen decisions have tried to answer is who can be banned from owning firearms. The Carbajal-Flores case is among the first to examine whether people who entered the country illegally are among those who can be barred from enjoying Second Amendment freedoms.

Curiously, Coleman initially ruled that the firearm prohibition for illegal aliens was constitutional back in April 2022. That said, she ended up taking the case after several rulings from the federal appeals courts in the Third and Seventh Circuit. In these cases, the courts attempted to determine whether individuals convicted of non-violent crimes could be permanently stripped of their right to bear arms after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Second Amendment in June 2022.

She reached the conclusion that violating misdemeanor immigration laws alone did not constitute sufficient justification to deprive individuals of their right to bear arms under the new test the Bruen decision set forth.

Many proponents of universalist persuasions—namely politically correct libertarians—applauded this ruling. They see the Second Amendment as a universal right, as opposed to a freedom that’s the product of a polity built by men of northern European extraction.

Concepts like the right to bear arms aren’t created out of thin air. They’re the product of the blood, intellect, sweat, and tears of ingenious political leaders—the American founding fathers in this case—who were acculturated in an Anglo-Saxon milieu that placed emphasis on individual and political freedom. Ultimately, they, their posterity, and other Europeans who have been legally integrated into the U.S. polity are the only individuals who should enjoy such freedoms.

Nations have every right to be exclusionary in who they allow to become members of their political community. Above all, nations reserve the right to not extend certain rights to foreigners who knowingly break their laws.

More fundamentally, in the political context the West is facing in the present, extending the right to bear arms to illegal aliens and other hostile political actors is asking for future unrest down the line.

During a time when the ruling class is working diligently to undermine the historic populations of the United States and Europe, while also privileging criminals, foreigners, and other subversive actors, granting these individuals the right to carry firearms is a recipe for national suicide.

At some point, Westerners will have to start operating under a strict friend-enemy distinction in dealing with the multitude of hostile elements festering in their polities. This may require serious nationalist governments to take harsh measures against these subversives.

Talking about “first principles,” philosophical abstractions, and marginal public policy reforms are the province of stable, homogenous jurisdictions.

Slavish devotion to these concepts in a moment of existential crisis will invariably lead to the destruction and eventual subjugation of Western nations by hostile entities who have nothing in common with their founding stock.

José Niño is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. You can contact him via Facebook and  Twitter. Get his e-book, The 10 Myths of Gun Control at josealbertonino.gumroad.com. Subscribe to his “Substack” newsletter by visiting “Jose Nino Unfiltered” on Substack.com.