The Justice Department’s top official in charge of civil rights has joined the legal battle over Illinois’ controversial assault weapons ban, and is expected to personally argue against the law this month before the federal appeals court in Chicago.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed late last week to hear from Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights. A group challenging Illinois’ gun law agreed to cede five minutes of its time before the court to Dhillon, records show.
It’s “extremely unusual” for the Justice Department “to treat Second Amendment rights as civil rights and advocate for them in such a direct and personal way at the appellate level,” Hannah Hill, vice president of the National Foundation for Gun Rights, told the Chicago Sun-Times.
“This is a new step, to actually ask for five minutes to participate in oral arguments,” she added.
Dhillon is a longtime advocate of conservative causes and a former lawyer for President Donald Trump. The Republican president nominated Dhillon for her role in the Justice Department soon after he secured his second term in the White House last fall.
She was confirmed by the Senate despite criticism from Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking member of the judiciary committee from Illinois.
“I cannot and will not support a nominee whose record suggests she is more likely to attack civil rights than defend them,” Durbin said. He argued she was part of a “growing list of the president’s personal lawyers” nominated for senior Justice Department roles.
Now Dhillon is taking on a signature accomplishment of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker’s, and getting involved in a case that has the potential to make it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. A Pritzker spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Dhillon reminded the 7th Circuit in June that “President Donald J. Trump has instructed his Administration to ‘protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans’” and that Attorney General Pam Bondi told the Justice Department “to use its full might” in doing so.
“The United States has strong interests in ensuring that these important questions are correctly resolved,” Dhillon told the appeals court.
Before joining the Trump administration, Dhillon founded the California-based Dhillon Law Group as well as the Center for American Liberty, which challenged California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s COVID-19 restrictions.
Dhillon also represented Trump before the Supreme Court amid the unsuccessful effort to remove his name from the ballot in states like Colorado and Illinois.
She was sworn in as an assistant attorney general April 7. In May, she announced a civil rights investigation into the role of race in hiring at City Hall under Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Dhillon also participated in a separate appellate court argument in June which didn’t turn on the Second Amendment. Rather, it revolved around whether the Maine legislature should be forced to count the votes of a GOP lawmaker who identified a transgender high school athlete in a social media post.
Then last week, Justice Department lawyers sought permission from the 7th Circuit to participate in oral arguments Sept. 22 revolving around Illinois’ assault weapons ban. They said Dhillon would “present oral argument on behalf of the United States” if the appeals court agreed.
It did so in an order entered Friday.
The 7th Circuit oversees federal district courts in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. It previously heard arguments over the ban in 2023, during the Biden administration. At the time, the court was considering whether to block a lower court’s preliminary injunction against the law.
The measure in question bans the sale of assault weapons like the AR-15 and caps the purchase of magazines at 10 rounds for long guns and 15 for handguns. Pritzker, who has not ruled out a presidential run in 2028, signed the ban into law early in 2023.
The law was inspired by the 2022 Highland Park parade shooting, which left seven dead. The gunman used an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle.
A three-judge panel from the 7th Circuit ruled that the weapons covered by Illinois’ law don’t have Second Amendment protection because they “are much more like machine guns and military-grade weaponry” than they are like other firearms used for self-defense.
But the law has since been the subject of a trial before the downstate judge who had entered the earlier preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn. After hearing the evidence at trial, McGlynn followed up by finding the ban unconstitutional last November.
The 7th Circuit again intervened to put his order on hold the following month.
Meanwhile, Supreme Court justices have made clear their interest in reviewing laws like Illinois’. The high court declined to take up a challenge to Illinois’ law in 2024, after the 7th Circuit had only considered whether a preliminary injunction was appropriate.
Still, Justice Samuel Alito apparently would have heard the case. And Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the justices should give more guidance “on which weapons the Second Amendment covers.”
Thomas added that, if the 7th Circuit “ultimately allows Illinois to ban America’s most common civilian rifle, we can — and should — review that decision once the cases reach a final judgment.”
That moment could be near. Other cases are brewing, too. Lawyers challenging Cook County’s assault weapons ban already have a pending petition before the Supreme Court.
And Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined Thomas and Alito earlier this year, signaling that the Supreme Court might consider such a law “in the next term or two.”