(IntegrityTimes.com) – An Obama-appointed judge in Illinois recently ruled that an illegal immigrant living in the United States could possess a firearm. U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ruled that Section 922(g)(5) of Title 18 of the US Criminal Code was unconstitutional. The federal law bans noncitizens from possessing or receiving firearms or ammunition. The ruling was made when Coleman dismissed charges filed against Heriberto Carbajal-Flores, a noncitizen who was charged under Title 18 in 2020. He said that he bought the firearm to protect his property and for self-defense following the death of George Floyd.
Carbajal-Flores’ initial motion to dismiss the charges was denied by Coleman, but he asked for reconsideration after the United States Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, where the majority ruled that a New York law against carrying a handgun in public violated the Second Amendment. Coleman also considered other court rulings that weighed nonviolent offenders’ right to possess firearms. Citing the “plain text” of the Constitution, Coleman wrote that it “presumptively protects firearms possession by undocumented persons.”
Coleman justified her ruling by providing an overview of Carbajal-Flores’s nonviolent criminal history and his reasoning for purchasing the firearm. She also pointed out that he was employed and had not been arrested since his initial arrest. Coleman also wrote that Carbajal-Flores followed the conditions outlined in his release from jail, which was confirmed by Pretrial Service. She concluded her ruling by noting that no evidence suggested Carbajal-Flores was a risk to the public or that he could not be trusted to responsibly use a weapon.
Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that blurring the lines between United States citizens and noncitizens has always been an agenda for the left. He said that the value of having United States citizenship would be lost if the blurring continued to occur. He said that there had to be a clear distinction between legal and nonlegal citizens.
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