A Mexican national who illegally entered the country more than twenty years ago was deported in November, and his attorneys claim a pro-Second Amendment sign in his yard may have sparked an investigation into his legal status.
Gilberto Alonso-Portillo was arrested at his home in Middletown, Ohio on April 7, and in court documents agents acknowledged seeing a sign in his yard that read “the owner of this property is armed.” Alonso-Portillo says he posted the sign back in 2022, after a lawnmower and his kids’ bikes were stolen from his yard. But was the sign really the reason for the investigation and his arrest?
Asked about how ICE came to target Alonso-Portillo, Kevin J. Gerrity, attorney for the sheriff’s office, said he would not comment on ongoing litigation other than to state that “the sheriff houses ICE detainees pursuant to a contract and to my knowledge had no other involvement as pertains to Mr. Alonso-Portillo.
Federal officials did not respond to a request for comment.
But federal officers involved in Alonso-Portillo’s arrest confirmed that the sign attracted their attention.
On April 7, members of a Homeland Security Task Force “noticed a sign” at his house, ICE agent Luke Affholter said in one court document.
FBI agent Donald Pender, in a separate statement, said he was among the officers who “surveilled” Alonso-Portillo’s home and took credit for spying the sign. “I questioned Alonso-Portillo about the sign and he admitted to owning a handgun,” Pender’s statement said.
Despite the claims of his attorneys, it sounds like Alonso-Portillo was already on the radar of the Homeland Security Task Force before any agents noticed the sign in his yard. Charleston Wang, who’s representing Alonso-Portillo, believes the sign “triggered the attention” of federal officials, but he doesn’t know how they learned about it.
Wang argues that Alonso-Portillo was targeted for the color of his skin as well, claiming that the only evidence agents had were “observation of the yard sign and a Hispanic leaving and returning to his driveway.”
At this point its unclear whether the task force was aware of Alonso-Portillo’s legal status prior to April 7 or what led them to surveil his home, but needless to say, posting a sign declaring gun ownership should not, in itself, be cause for any kind of criminal investigation.
In his appeal on behalf of Alonso-Portillo, Wang claims his client’s First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated, but doesn’t make a specific argument that his right to keep and bear arms was violated as well. USA Today reports, though, that his attorneys do believe Alonso-Portillo had the right to own a firearm under Ohio law.
Ohio’s constitution reads “The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be kept up; and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power.”
The question, then, is whether Alonso-Portillo and others in this country illegally are a part of “the people.” The Supreme Court has suggested that phrase applies to anyone who is a part of the political community, but it’s hard to argue that illegal immigrants would fall under that definition.
Alonso-Portillo did have a couple of firearms (as well as about 1,100 rounds of ammunition) in his home that he says were gifts, but claims he never used them. While he could have been prosecuted under federal law for possessing firearms as an illegal immigrant, he was instead deported back to Mexico in November, 2025.
By all accounts, Alonso-Portillo isn’t a violent criminal. His arrest last April was his first run-in with the law since illegally entering the United States when he was 17. At the time of his arrest he ran a small tree-trimming business with his brother, and owned a rental property in addition to the 1,000 square foot house he and his family called home. Whether or not he should have been the subject of an ICE investigation depends on how aggressively you think the federal government should be deporting illegal immigrants, but under current federal law he was not allowed to possess the guns that were found in his residence.
Again, if ICE is viewing a pro-Second Amendment sign or bumper sticker as a reason to investigate someone’s legal status in this country, that would be a big problem. Based on USA Today’s reporting, though, I’m not convinced that was the case here. As Alonso-Portillo’s appeal continues we’ll hopefully learn more about the circumstances of the investigation that led to his arrest, but in the meantime it would be good to hear DHS Secretary Kristi Noem explicitly state publicly that support for the Second Amendment or merely possessing a firearm isn’t viewed by DHS and its sub-agencies like ICE as a suspicious act or cause for investigation.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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