A federal judge in Illinois recently made a significant ruling regarding the gun rights of noncitizens who enter the United States illegally. U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman found that a federal prohibition on illegal immigrants owning firearms is unconstitutional as applied to defendant Heriberto Carbajal-Flores.
Judge Coleman's decision was based on the argument that while the federal ban may be considered 'facially constitutional,' there is no historical tradition of firearm regulation that allows the government to deprive a noncitizen, who has not been convicted of a violent crime, from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
