Medina-Cantu pleaded guilty and was sentenced last year to 15 months in prison, but he preserved the right to argue on appeal that the gun charge violated his right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.
His lawyers based their argument on a landmark 2022 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority that established a new test for assessing whether modern firearm restrictions comply with the Second Amendment.
The court's ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen required gun regulations to be "consistent with this nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation." Many laws have been declared invalid following that decision.
Medina-Cantu's lawyers argued the ruling likewise undermined a 2011 decision by the 5th Circuit upholding the immigration-related ban as there was no historical tradition dating back to around when the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791 of disarming people based solely on their immigration status.
But the three-judge panel said the Supreme Court's recent rulings on gun rights "did not unequivocally abrogate our precedent that the plain text of the Second Amendment does not encompass illegal aliens."
Medina-Cantu's lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
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Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Bill Berkrot
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Nate Raymond
Thomson Reuters
Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at
[email protected].
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