Judge Rules Illegal Immigrants Can Own Guns

A federal judge has ruled that immigrants living in the US illegally have the right to self-defense. It’s a landmark decision that will undoubtedly have a widespread impact across the face of gun ownership in the US.

The Ruling

On March 8, District Court Judge Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ruled that being an illegal immigrant does not preclude someone from owning a firearm. Johnson Coleman is an appointee of former president Barack Obama. That’s great news for the 11 million people living in the US illegally, who were previously barred from taking their self-defense into their own hands.

The plaintiff in the case was migrant Heriberto Carbajal-Flores. Carbajal-Flores wanted to purchase a gun in Spring of 2020 to protect himself against civil unrest occurring in Illinois. Carabajal-Flores had no history of violent crime, and so would not have been legally barred from owning a gun were he a US citizen.

The logic in this case is that many illegal immigrants haven’t actually committed a crime. According to the ACLU, an estimated 45% of illegal immigration cases arise from overstaying a visa. This, in and of itself, is not a criminal offense. And since the only people guilty of felonies or violent misdemeanors are prohibited from owning a gun under federal law, these people aren’t prohibited from carrying a weapon in the eyes of the law.

Final Thoughts

Some anti-gun folks seem to think that this is a “gotcha” moment entrapping gun rights advocates, because they assume gun owners are inherently racist. If more illegal immigrants have firearms, they think, then gun owners will suddenly change their minds and support gun control.

That’s a flawed assumption. As a gun rights advocate myself, I’m happy to have more people in America exercising their rights to defend themselves.

Legal Hangups

Regardless of how you feel about this new ruling, it does bring up an interesting new legal quandary and a challenge for the current gun and ammo laws. If an illegal immigrant can own a gun, what happens to the background check process?

Usually, when you buy a gun, the store you buy it from needs to run a background check to make sure you don't have any felony or domestic violence convictions. This background check goes through the FBI’s crime database.

However, an illegal immigrant doesn’t have the same paper trail as an American citizen. They may be using a fake name, or may have been convicted of a crime before they came to the US to buy a gun.

We haven’t heard the last of this ruling – expect it to head to the Supreme Court.