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Do undocumented immigrants have the right to own guns?

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The night of June 1st 2020 was a chaotic one in Chicago. A week earlier, George Floyd had been murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, and protests against police brutality had spread all over the world. A day before, the then mayor, Lori Lightfoot, had requested help from the National Guard for the first time since the riots of 1968. Such was the situation when Heriberto Carbajal-Flores, a then-28-year-old carpenter, borrowed a gun and joined a group of men defending a tyre shop in Little Village, a Mexican neighbourhood, from would-be looters. At around 11pm, in full view of a camera, Mr Carbajal-Flores shot seven times in the direction of a white car that was speeding past. Forty minutes later, he was arrested.

So far, just another story of madness on that hot summer night. But Mr Carbajal-Flores’s rather reckless defence of property may yet change America. In early March the last of the charges originally filed against him was dismissed by a federal judge in Chicago. Mr Carbajal-Flores, a Mexican citizen who arrived illegally in America as a child, was accused of breaking the federal law which bans undocumented immigrants (as well as foreigners on temporary visas) from owning guns. The judge, Sharon Johnson Coleman, ruled that, as applied to him, the law was unconstitutional. Citing cases of former British loyalists in the revolutionary war who were allowed guns, she argued that Mr Carbajal-Flores was entitled to an “individualised assessment” about whether he had a right to own a gun; and in his case, he did.

In effect, Ms Coleman ruled that some undocumented immigrants are allowed to have guns. Though it will almost certainly be appealed, the ruling has already set off a storm among Republicans. Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, wondered if the ruling was “being done to sort of mock both gun laws and also the whole…understanding of the value of being a citizen of the United States”. It shows how one conservative priority, the right to gun ownership with few restrictions, may be about to crash into another: a strong dislike of undocumented migrants.

A generation ago the idea that a Mexican illegally in America could have a constitutional right to carry a gun would have been considered absurd. Yet the question has arisen thanks to conservative rulings at the Supreme Court that have widened the scope of the Second Amendment, which gives Americans the right to bear arms.

First, in 2008 there was District of Columbia v Heller, which ruled that a ban on handguns in the nation’s capital was unconstitutional. Then, in 2022, came New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v Bruen, which ruled that requiring individuals to show “proper cause” to get a concealed-carry permit was also unconstitutional, along with any gun-control law lacking an analogue in 1791. Now the Second Amendment is, in the words of Justice Clarence Thomas, no longer “a second-class right” to be given at the discretion of officials. Rather, it is comparable to, say, the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech and religion.

Yet the constitution says that the right to bear arms is held by “the people”, and not merely by citizens. Mr Carbajal-Flores’s lawyers argue that their client is a member of “the people” by virtue of his ties to the United States. Though he entered America illegally, he is eligible for protection from deportation under daca, an executive order signed into effect by Barack Obama. The weekend after he was arrested he got married to his longtime girlfriend, who is an American citizen. His children are citizens. They also argue that his specific use of a weapon, to deter looters, was exactly the sort of behaviour that many conservatives admire. Mr Carbajal-Flores says he was instructed by the police to go armed, and the shots he fired were warning shots. “Our client is a legitimate hero,” says Ross Cassingham, one of Mr Carbajal-Flores’s lawyers. “He’s the proverbial good guy with a gun.”

At appeal the government’s lawyers are likely to say otherwise. In their response to the defence’s first motion to dismiss, they noted that Mr Carbajal-Flores armed himself before he even spoke to the police and suggested his gunfire was not obviously intended only to warn, so he was not acting in legitimate self-defence. They also argued that the law banning undocumented migrants from owning guns is constitutional, on the basis that the Heller decision still allowed the government to restrict classes of people from owning firearms. And they contended that restrictions on non-citizens are legitimate, on the basis that people who have already broken the law in moving to the country cannot be trusted with firearms. That argument was initially accepted.

But that came before Bruen, which in effect established a test that gun laws must be in line with the laws of the early republic. Hence Judge Coleman’s consideration of how British loyalists were treated after the revolutionary war. In the late 18th century, notes Adam Winkler, of the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, the concept of illegal immigration hardly existed, and so “the people” included everybody inside the United States. “It is clear that undocumented immigrants have a right to free speech and free religion,” says Mr Winkler. “So for purposes of consistency, one would imagine they would have Second Amendment rights.”

What happens next? Another case in the Supreme Court will soon decide whether domestic abusers under restraining orders can be restricted from owning guns; that may give some hints as to how the Carbajal-Flores case could be resolved. A final decision could have big implications. At the moment, for example, the state of Illinois requires anyone who wants a gun to apply for a licence, and bans foreigners without green cards from applying. If upheld, this ruling could force the state to consider almost anyone. Hence the outrage of people like Mr Rubio.

Yet as Mr Winkler notes, there is an irony to the backlash. Conservatives usually argue that gun-control laws do not stop criminals from buying guns anyway. But then conservatives have not always been so keen on widespread gun rights—at least when people they dislike start exercising them. In 1967 California banned the carrying of loaded guns, in an attempt to disarm the rifle-carrying Black Panther Party. The governor who signed the law was none other than Ronald Reagan. Views on guns can change, even among Republicans.

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Economics

Trump will ‘buckle under pressure’ if Europe bands together over tariffs: German economy minister

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BERLIN, GERMANY – FEBRUARY 24: Robert Habeck, chancellor candidate of the German Greens Party, speaks to the media the day after German parliamentary elections on February 24, 2025 in Berlin, Germany. The Greens came in fourth place with 11.6% of the vote, down 2.9% from the previous election. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images

U.S. President Donald Trump will “buckle under pressure” and alter his tariff policies if Europe bands together, acting German economy minister Robert Habeck said Thursday.

“That is what I see, that Donald Trump will buckle under pressure, that he corrects his announcements under pressure, but the logical consequence is that he then also needs to feel the pressure,” he said during a press conference, according to a CNBC translation.

“And this pressure now needs to be unfolded, from Germany, from Europe in the alliance with other countries, and then we will see who is the stronger one in this arm wrestle,” Habeck said.

Elsewhere, outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he believed the latest tariff decisions by Trump were “fundamentally wrong,” according to a CNBC translation.

The measures are an attack on the global trade order and will result in suffering for the global economy, Scholz said.

On Wednesday, Trump imposed 20% levies on the European Union, including on the bloc’s foremost economy Germany, as he signed a sweeping and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy.

Germany is widely regarded as one of the countries likely to be most impacted by Trump’s tariffs, given its heavy economic reliance on trade.

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.

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Economics

The Trump train slows

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THESE DAYS are dire and dour for Democrats. But April 1st brought a brief reprieve—and not because of jokes. That was the day that the most expensive judicial election in American history in the battleground state of Wisconsin ended in a decisive triumph for the left-leaning candidate. It had drawn $100m of spending, including an estimated $25m from Elon Musk who also, perhaps unhelpfully, personally campaigned in the state. The same day, two special elections in Florida for vacant congressional seats took place in safe Republican districts. Although they did not win, Democrats improved their margins by 17 and 20 percentage points compared with the general elections held just five months ago. Cory Booker, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, staged a one-man protest on the floor of the Senate, excoriating President Donald Trump’s administration for 25 hours straight—a stunt, to be sure, but one that demonstrated proof of life in a party that supporters worried had gone limp.

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Economics

How did the U.S. arrive at its tariff figures?

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a “Make America Wealthy Again” trade announcement event in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

Markets have turned their sights on how U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration arrived at the figures behind the sweeping tariffs on U.S. imports declared Wednesday, which sent global financial markets tumbling and sparked concerns worldwide.

Trump and the White House shared a series of charts on social media detailing the tariff rates they say other countries impose on the U.S. Those purported rates include the countries’ “Currency Manipulation and Trade Barriers.”

An adjacent column shows the new U.S. tariff rates on each country, as well as the European Union.

Chart of reciprocal tariffs.

Courtesy: Donald Trump via Truth Social

Those rates are, in most cases, roughly half of what the Trump administration claims each country has “charged” the U.S. CNBC could not independently verify the U.S. administration’s data on these duties.

It didn’t take long for market observers to try and reverse engineer the formula — to confusing results. Many, including journalist and author James Surowiecki, said the U.S. appeared to have divided the trade deficit by imports from a given country to arrive at tariff rates for individual countries.

Such methodology doesn’t necessarily align with the conventional approach to calculate tariffs and would imply the U.S. would have only looked at the trade deficit in goods and ignored trade in services.

For instance, the U.S. claims that China charges a tariff of 67%. The U.S. ran a deficit of $295.4 billion with China in 2024, while imported goods were worth $438.9 billion, according to official data. When you divide $295.4 billion by $438.9 billion, the result is 67%! The same math checks out for Vietnam.

“The formula is about trade imbalances with the U.S. rather than reciprocal tariffs in the sense of tariff level or non-tariff level distortions. This makes it very difficult for Asian, particularly the poorer Asian countries, to meet US demand to reduce tariffs in the short-term as the benchmark is buying more American goods than they export to the U.S., ” according to Trinh Nguyen, senior economist of emerging Asia at Natixis.

“Given that U.S. goods are much more expensive, and the purchasing power is lower for countries targeted with the highest levels of tariffs, such option is not optimal. Vietnam, for example, stands out in having the 4th largest trade surplus with the U.S., and has already lowered tariffs versus the U.S. ahead of tariff announcement without any reprieve,” Nguyen said.

The U.S. also appeared to have applied a 10% levy for regions where it is running a trade surplus.

"Absolutely nothing good coming out" of Trump tariff announcement, veteran economist Rosenberg says

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative laid out its approach on its website, which appeared somewhat similar to what cyber sleuths had already figured out, barring a few differences.

The U.S.T.R. also included estimates for the elasticity of imports to import prices—in other words, how sensitive demand for foreign goods is to prices—and the passthrough of higher tariffs into higher prices of imported goods.

“While individually computing the trade deficit effects of tens of thousands of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in each country is complex, if not impossible, their combined effects can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero. If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair,” the website reads.

This screenshot of the U.S.T.R. webpage shows the methodology and formula that was used in greater detail:

A screenshot from the website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

Some analysts acknowledged that the U.S. government’s methodology could give it more wiggle room to reach an agreement.

“All I can say is that the opaqueness surrounding the tariff numbers may add some flexibility in making deals, but it could come at a cost to US credibility,” according to Rob Subbaraman, head of global macro research at Nomura.

 — CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger contributed to this piece.

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