In United States v. Jimenez-Shilon, No. 20-13139 (May 23, 2022) (Newsom, Branch, Brasher), the Court held that 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(5)(A)—which prohibits illegal aliens from possessing firearms—does not violate the Second Amendment.
The Court held that illegal aliens do not have Second Amendment rights. The Court assumed, for the sake of argument, that the defendant here was among the “people” referenced in the Constitution. Nonetheless, after conducting an extensive historical analysis, the Court concluded that illegal aliens were not afforded the right to bear arms in England or colonial America. In so concluding, the Court joined seven circuits to address the issue, which all reached the same conclusion. Accordingly, the Court held that 922(g)(5)(A) does not violate the Second Amendment.
Judge Newsom authored a separate 10-page concurrence about his views more generally on how to conduct a Second Amendment analysis in future cases.
