An illegal alien is claiming that his right to self-defense is protected under the Second Amendment of the constitution.

Javier Perez, a Mexican national, was charged after he fired a round into the air in Brooklyn in order to ward off rival gang members in 2016, reported The New York Daily News. Perez is now claiming in a Brooklyn federal court that his right to bear arms is guaranteed under the constitution despite not being a United States citizen.

“The Framers were clear: if they meant citizens, they would have said citizens. But they didn’t,” Samuel Jacobson, Perez’s lawyer, argued. “There is no suggestion that there was a concept of ‘illegal alien’ and no suggestion that if you were from a foreign country, you couldn’t bear arms.” (RELATED: Liberal Court Rules The Second Amendment Protects The Right To Openly Carry A Firearm)

Perez’s case was allowed to move ahead despite objection from the federal prosecutor.

Federal courts in the past have been split on whether “the People” in the Second Amendment refers to both citizens as well as non-citizens, and further, if Congress has an “interest in keeping hands out of non-citizens.”

If convicted, Perez faces a 10-year maximum sentence which could be followed by deportation orders.

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