A federal appeals court in New Orleans has ruled that illegal immigrants do not have the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.
The court’s decision rejected arguments from a Mexican man who was convicted of unlawfully possessing a handgun and claimed that the ban was unconstitutional.
A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that federal prohibitions on illegal immigrants owning firearms was lawful, and Second Amendment rights do not apply to those who have entered the country illegally.
The ruling followed an appeal by Jose Paz Medina-Cantu, who was arrested by Border Patrol agents in Texas in 2022. He faced charges for illegally possessing a handgun and for re-entering the country unlawfully after a prior deportation.
Medina-Cantu pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 months in prison last year. However, he reserved the right to challenge on appeal the gun charge, arguing that it infringed on his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
His lawyers based their argument on the 2022 landmark New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen decision by the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority that established a new standard to determine