Niz-Chavez v. Garland

JUSTICE GORSUCH delivered the opinion of the Court.¶verify

Anyone who has applied for a passport, filed for Social Security benefits, or sought a license understands the government’s affinity for forms. Make a mistake or skip a page? Go back and try again, sometimes with a penalty for the trouble. But it turns out the federal government finds some of its forms frustrating too. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), 110 Stat. 3009–546, requires the government to serve “a notice to appear” on individuals it wishes to remove from this country. At first blush, a notice to appear might seem to be just that—a single document containing all the information an individual needs to know about his removal hearing. But, the government says, supplying so much information in a single form is too taxing. It needs more flexibility, allowing its officials to provide information in separate mailings (as many as they wish) over time (as long as they find convenient). The question for us is whether the law Congress adopted tolerates the government’s preferred practice.¶verify

I¶verify

For more than a century, Congress has afforded the Attorney General (or other executive officials) discretion to allow otherwise removable aliens to remain in the country. An alien seeking to establish his eligibility for that kind of discretionary relief, however, must demonstrate a number of things. A nonpermanent resident, for example, must show that his removal would cause an “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to close relatives who are U. S. citizens or lawful permanent residents; that he is of good moral character; that he has not been convicted of certain crimes; and that he has been continuously present in the country for at least 10 years. 8 U. S. C. §1229b(b)(1).¶verify

The last item on this list lies at the crux of this case. Originally, an alien continued to accrue time toward the presence requirement during the pendency of his removal proceedings. With time, though, some came to question this practice, arguing that it gave immigrants an undue incentive to delay things. See, e . g ., In re CisnerosGonzales , 23 I. & N. Dec. 668, 670–671 (BIA 2004). In IIRIRA, Congress responded to these concerns with a new “stop-time” rule. Under the statute’s terms, “any period of continuous . . . presence in the United States shall be deemed to end . . . when the alien is served a notice to appear.” §1229b(d)(1).¶verify

All of which invites the question: What qualifies as a notice to appear sufficient to trigger the stop-time rule? IIRIRA defines a notice to appear as “written notice . . . specifying” several things. §1229(a)(1). These include the nature of the proceedings against the alien, the legal authority for the proceedings, the charges against the alien, the fact that the alien may be represented by counsel, the time and place at which the proceedings will be held, and the consequences of failing to appear. See ibid .¶verify

This seemingly simple rule has generated outsized controversy. Initially, the dispute focused on the government’s practice of issuing documents labeled notices to appear that failed to include the time and place for the alien’s removal hearing. The government argued these documents were sufficient to trigger the stop-time rule. It insisted that proceeding this way served an important governmental interest too: If it waited to issue notices until the calendars of its hearing officers became clear, aliens would accrue too much time toward the presence requirement. Ultimately, however, this Court rejected the government’s practice in Pereira v. Sessions , 585 U. S. ___ (2018). We explained that, in IIRIRA, Congress took pains to describe exactly what the government had to include in a notice to appear, and that the time and place of the hearing were among them. Id ., at ___. The government was not free to short-circuit the stoptime rule by sending notices to appear that omitted statutorily required information. Id ., at ___.¶verify

Today’s case represents the next chapter in the same story. Perhaps the government could have responded to Pereira by issuing notices to appear with all the information §1229(a)(1) requires—and then amending the time or place information if circumstances required it. After all, in the very next statutory subsection, §1229(a)(2), Congress expressly contemplated that possibility. But, at least in cases like ours, it seems the government has chosen instead to continue down the same old path. Here, the government sent Mr. Niz-Chavez one document containing the charges against him. Then, two months later, it sent a second document with the time and place of his hearing. In light of Pereira , the government now concedes the first document isn’t enough to trigger the stop-time rule. Still, the government submits, the second document does the trick. On its view, a “notice to appear” is complete and the stop-time rule kicks in whenever it finishes delivering all the statutorily prescribed information. The government says it needs this kind of flexibility to send information piecemeal. It even suggests it should be allowed to spread the statutorily mandated information over as many documents and as much time as it wishes.¶verify

Some circuits have accepted the government’s notice-byinstallment theory. Others, however, have held that the government must issue a single and comprehensive notice before it can trigger the stop-time rule. We agreed to hear this case, Niz-Chavez v. Barr , 789 Fed. Appx. 523 (CA6 2019), to resolve the conflict, 590 U. S. ___ (2020).¶verify

II¶verify

When called on to resolve a dispute over a statute’s meaning, this Court normally seeks to afford the law’s terms their ordinary meaning at the time Congress adopted them. See, e.g. , Wisconsin Central Ltd. v. United States , 585 U. S. ___, ___ (2018). The people who come before us are entitled, as well, to have independent judges exhaust “all the textual and structural clues” bearing on that meaning. Id. , at ___ (slip op., at 8). When exhausting those clues enables us to resolve the interpretive question put to us, our “sole function” is to apply the law as we find it, Lamie v. United States Trustee , 540 U. S. 526, 534 (2004) (internal quotation marks omitted), not defer to some conflicting reading the government might advance.¶verify

A¶verify

In this case, our interpretive task begins with two statutory provisions we have already touched on. The first, §1229b(d)(1), states that the stop-time rule is triggered “when the alien is served a notice to appear under section 1229(a).” In turn, §1229(a)(1) explains that “written notice (in this section referred to as a ‘notice to appear’) shall be given . . . to the alien . . . specifying” the time and place of his hearing and all the other items we noted above. Almost immediately, these provisions pose the government with a problem. To trigger the stop-time rule, the government must serve “a” notice containing all the information Congress has specified. To an ordinary reader—both in 1996 and today—“a” notice would seem to suggest just that: “a” single document containing the required information, not a mishmash of pieces with some assembly required.¶verify

Nor is the government’s response (echoed by the dissent) entirely satisfying. The government submits that §1229(a)(1) defines the term “notice to appear” as “written notice”—and then says it’s obvious “written notice” can come by means of one document or many. See post, at 6–7 (opinion of KAVANAUGH, J.). But this argument doesn’t quite track. Section 1229(a)(1) says that “written notice” is “referred to as a ‘notice to appear.'' The singular article “a” thus falls outside the defined term (“notice to appear”) and modifies the entire definition. So even if we were to do exactly as the government suggests and substitute “written notice” for “notice to appear,” the law would still stubbornly require “a” written notice containing all the required information.¶verify

Admittedly, a lot here turns on a small word. In the view of some, too much. The dissent urges us to overlook the fact Congress placed the singular article “a” outside the defined term in §1229(a)(1). On its view, we should read the statute as if the article came inside the defined term. Post , at 7–8. But that’s not how the law is written, and the dissent never explains what authority might allow us to undertake the statutory rearranging it advocates. 1 Nor does any of this¶verify

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1 The closest the dissent comes is when it alludes to United States Nat. Bank of Ore. v. Independent Ins. Agents of America, Inc. , 508 U. S. 439 (1993). But that “unusual” case turned on the “scrivener’s error” doctrine, id. , at 462, which applies only in exceptional circumstances to obvious technical drafting errors. See, e.g., Lamie v. United States Trustee , 540 U. S. 526, 538 (2004); A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law 237–238 (2012). Nobody (the dissent included) contends the conditions required for that doctrine’s application exist here.¶verify

help when it comes to §1229b(d)(1), the provision that actually creates the stop-time rule, for that statute separately speaks of “a” notice to appear. Not once but twice it seems Congress contemplated “a” single document.¶verify

Perhaps recognizing this much, the government and dissent pivot and focus their efforts in a different direction. Now, they remind us that “[t]he indefinite article ‘a’ is often used to refer to something that may be provided in more than one installment.” Brief in Opposition 10; see also post , at 10–11. The government observes, for example, that a writer can publish “a” story serially, or an author may deliver “a” manuscript chapter by chapter. Brief in Opposition 10. The dissent offers its own illustrations, highlighting that “a job application” and “a contract” also can be prepared in parts. Post, at 10. So even if IIRIRA speaks repeatedly of “a” notice to appear, the government and dissent contend, it remains possible that Congress meant to allow that notice to come over time and in pieces.¶verify

The trouble with this response is that everyone admits language doesn’t always work this way. To build on an illustration we used in Pereira , someone who agrees to buy “a car” would hardly expect to receive the chassis today, wheels next week, and an engine to follow. 585 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 14); see post , at 10. At best, then, all of the competing examples the government and dissent supply do no more than demonstrate context matters. And here at least, it turns out that context does little to alter first impressions.¶verify

Start with customary usage. Normally, indefinite articles (like “a” or “an”) precede countable nouns. The examples above illustrate the point: While you might say “she wrote a manuscript” or “he sent three job applications,” no one would say “she wrote manuscript” or “he sent job application.” See The Chicago Manual of Style §5.7, p. 227 (17th ed. 2017); see also R. Huddleston & G. Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language §3.1, p. 334¶verify

(2002). By contrast, noncountable nouns—including abstractions like “cowardice” or “fun”—“almost never take indefinite articles.” The Chicago Manual of Style §5.7, at 227; see also Huddleston, supra , §3.1, at 334. After all, few would speak of “a cowardice” or “three funs.”¶verify

These customs matter because the key term before us (notice) can refer to either a countable object (“a notice,” “three notices”) or a noncountable abstraction (“sufficient notice,” “proper notice”). Congress’s decision to use the indefinite article “a” thus supplies some evidence that it used the term in the first of these senses—as a discrete, countable thing. All of which suggests that the government must issue a single statutorily compliant document to trigger the stop-time rule. If IIRIRA had meant to endow the government with the flexibility it supposes, we would have expected the law to use “notice” in its noncountable sense. A statute like that would have said the stop-time rule applies after the government provides “notice” (or perhaps “sufficient notice”) of the mandated information—indicating an indifference about whether notice should come all at once or by installment.¶verify

Of course this is just a clue. Sometimes Congress’s statutes stray a good way from ordinary English. Sometimes, too, Congress chooses to endow seemingly familiar words with specialized definitions. But until and unless someone points to evidence suggesting otherwise, affected individuals and courts alike are entitled to assume statutory terms bear their ordinary meaning. And when it comes to discerning the ordinary meaning of words, there are perhaps few better places to start than the rules governing their usage.¶verify

Nor is this the only contextual clue before us. A notice to appear serves as the basis for commencing a grave legal proceeding. As the government has acknowledged, it is “like an indictment in a criminal case [or] a complaint in a civil case.” Tr. of Oral Arg. in Pereira v. Sessions , O. T. 2017, No. 17–459, p. 39. The rules Congress has adopted to describe those other case-initiating pleadings often use the indefinite article to refer to a single document—an indictment, an information, or a civil complaint. See, e . g ., Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 7(a), (c)(1), (e); Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 3. In each case, the aim is to supply an affected party with a single document highlighting certain salient features of the proceedings against him. No one contends those documents may be shattered into bits, so that the government might, for example, charge a defendant in “an indictment” issued piece by piece over months or years. And it is unclear why we should suppose Congress meant for this case-initiating document to be different. 2¶verify

The government resists this conclusion by invoking the Dictionary Act. When reading the U. S. Code, that Act tells us to assume “words importing the singular include and apply to several persons, parties, or things,” unless statutory context indicates otherwise. 1 U. S. C. §1. But this instruction has no application here. The Dictionary Act does not transform every use of the singular “a” into the plural “several.” Instead, it tells us only that a statute using the singular “a” can apply to multiple persons, parties, or things. So the Act allows the government to send multiple notices to appear to multiple people, but it does not mean a notice to appear can consist of multiple documents.¶verify

Think of the problem this way: Suppose a statute made it a crime to vandalize “a” bank. Under the Dictionary Act, someone who vandalizes five banks could not avoid prosecution on the ground that he vandalized more than one. Now take a hypothetical closer to this case—a person who¶verify

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2 The question is not, as the dissent seems to think, whether certain other charging documents do or do not require “calendaring” information. Post, at 11. Instead, our point is that each case-initiating document must contain the catalogue of information Congress has said the defendant or respondent is entitled to receive in that document—and no one thinks this information may be provided by installment. Nor does anyone dispute that Congress has said this case-initiating document must include (among other things) “[t]he time and place at which the proceedings will be held.” 8 U. S. C. §1229(a)(1)(G)(i).¶verify

vandalizes some constituent part of a not-yet-completed bank (say, a stack of blocks on a construction site). Did he vandalize “a” bank? Answering that question depends on whether Congress defined “bank” to include its constituent parts, not on what the Dictionary Act says about the word “a.”¶verify

To the extent any doubt remains about the meaning of the two specific statutes before us, we believe a wider look at IIRIRA’s statutory structure and history enough to resolve it.¶verify

Take 8 U. S. C. §1229(e)(1). That nearby provision sets forth special rules the government must follow when it seizes an alien at a sensitive location like a domestic violence shelter. In circumstances like these, Congress has instructed, “ the Notice to Appear shall include a statement that” the government has complied with certain special requirements. Ibid . (emphasis added). Here again we encounter an article coupled with a singular noun (“the Notice”), a combination that once more seems to suggest a discrete document. Nor would the rest of §1229(e)(1)’s terms make much sense on the government’s account. If a notice to appear were a collection of information rather than a single written instrument, Congress would have had no need to insist on “includ[ing]” a particular statement in “the Notice to Appear.” Ibid . More simply, it could have required the government to provide the information, full stop.¶verify

Once more, too, the government’s response is less than satisfying. It suggests that the “Notice to Appear” discussed in §1229(e)(1) isn’t the same “notice to appear” described in §1229(a)(1). No, the government says, by using capital letters in §1229(e)(1) Congress sought to prescribe only what must be included in a Department of Homeland Security form entitled “Notice to Appear.” But that much is hard to see. Section 1229(e)(1)’s discussion about what must be included in a notice to appear resides just a couple doors down from the provisions at issue before us, and it seems pretty clearly to modify those provisions in certain special circumstances. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security form exists only by regulation and the department can change that regulation any time. Maybe, too, there is another explanation for the capital letters. Maybe they simply reflect how clear it was by the time Congress added §1229(e)(1) in 2006—a decade after IIRIRA’s adoption—that a notice to appear is a specific document in which the government can (and must) “include” the required certification. 3¶verify

Next comes §1229a(b)(7). It states that an alien who fails to appear for his removal proceedings is typically ineligible for relief if, “at the time of the notice described in paragraph (1) or (2) of section 1229(a),” the government supplies oral as well as written notice of the time and place of the removal proceedings and the consequences of failing to appear. §1229a(b)(7). Again, the law seems to speak of the charging document as a discrete thing, using a definite article with a singular noun (“the notice”). And by speaking of “the notice” being served at a particular “time” the statute seems to equate service with a discrete moment, not an ongoing endeavor. To be sure, one could reply (as the government and dissent do) that “the time of the notice” refers to the moment when the final installment arrives. See post, at 13–14. But if that’s what Congress meant, this was¶verify

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3 Even the dissent declines to endorse the government’s interpretation of §1229(e)(1). Instead, it merely repeats the anodyne point that singular articles are sometimes used “with a thing delivered in constituent installments.” Post , at 14. But that observation cuts little ice in this context for reasons we’ve already explored in Part II–A, supra . The dissent also fails to explain why Congress would have gone to the trouble of insisting in §1229(e)(1) that “the Notice to Appear” contain additional information if it really meant only to require the government to provide that information whenever and however it pleases.¶verify

surely an awkward way of saying so.¶verify

Section 1229(a)(2) adds to the government’s growing list of problems. That provision applies when officials wish to change the alien’s hearing date. It requires the government to serve “ a written notice” specifying “the new time or place of the proceedings” and the “consequences . . . of failing . . . to attend such proceedings.” §1229(a)(2)(A) (emphasis added). The government does not argue this statute contemplates multiple documents. And if that’s the case—if §1229(a)(2) anticipates a single document—it’s not exactly obvious why the phrase “a notice to appear” found next door in §1229(a)(1) should operate differently. 4¶verify

Finally, there is the statute’s history and the government’s initial response to it. Before IIRIRA, the government began removal proceedings by issuing an “order to show cause”—the predecessor of today’s “notice to appear.” Back then, the law expressly authorized the government to specify the place and time for an alien’s hearing “in the order to show cause or otherwise .” §1252b(a)(2)(A) (1994 ed.) (emphasis added). IIRIRA changed all that. It changed the name of the charging document—and it changed the rules governing the document’s contents. Now time and place information must be included in a notice to appear, not “or otherwise.” Nor was the alteration an insensible one. Recall that IIRIRA also created the stop-time rule and pegged it to the service of a notice to appear. A rational Congress easily could have thought that measuring an alien’s period of residence against the service date of a discrete document¶verify

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4 The dissent seeks to raise the cudgel on the government’s behalf, arguing that §1229(a)(2) does permit multiple documents. Post , at 14-15. But on the dissent’s reading, the statute would authorize the government to (1) hand an alien one document with a new time for his hearing, (2) follow up at its leisure with a second document containing the new hearing date, and (3) add a third document later still explaining the consequences of failing to appear. To state the theory may be enough to explain why the government declines to press it.¶verify

was preferable to trying to measure it against a constellation of moving pieces.¶verify

Notably, too, the year after Congress adopted IIRIRA the government proposed a rule to create “the Notice to Appear, Form I–862, replacing the Order to Show Cause, Form I221.” See 62 Fed. Reg. 449 (1997). In the preamble to its proposed rule, the government expressly acknowledged that “the language of the amended Act indicat[es] that the time and place of the hearing must be on the Notice to Appear .” Ibid. (emphasis added). We don’t mention this, as the dissent supposes, in support of some argument that “post-enactment regulatory history” should overcome “the otherwise-best interpretation of the statute.” Post , at 16. Rather, we mention it only to observe that even the party now urging otherwise once read the statute just as we do. To the extent that dissent accuses us of being “literalists,” it seems the literalists once infiltrated the Executive Branch too. Post, at 10. 5¶verify

Perhaps, though, what’s really going on here has nothing to do with labels like that. Perhaps there’s a simpler explanation. Perhaps when Congress adopted IIRIRA everyone understood that it required a single fully compliant document to trigger the stop-time rule. Perhaps the government has resisted the law’s demands only because they leave its officials with less flexibility than they once had. Regardless, when interpreting this or any statute, we do not aim for “literal” interpretations, but neither do we seek to indulge efforts to endow the Executive Branch with maximum bureaucratic flexibility. We simply seek the law’s ordinary meaning. Today, a long parade of textual and contextual clues persuade us of this statute’s ordinary¶verify

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5 It makes no difference either that the Executive Branch tempered its candor by promising later in its proposed rule to provide a single notice only “where practicable.” Post, at 16. That the government let slip (at least once) that it understood the plain import of IIRIRA’s revisions remains telling.¶verify

meaning. If, in the process of discerning that meaning, we happen to consult grammar and dictionary definitionsalong with statutory structure and history—we do so because the rules that govern language often inform how ordinary people understand the rules that govern them.¶verify

III¶verify

Ultimately, the government is forced to abandon any pretense of interpreting the statute’s terms and retreat to policy arguments and pleas for deference. The government admits that producing compliant notices has proved taxing over time. It may not know the availability of hearing officers’ schedules at the time it would prefer to initiate proceedings against aliens. Nor, the government contends, does it make sense to include time and place information in a notice to appear when the statute allows it to amend the time and place by serving a supplemental notice. Beyond all that, the government stresses, its own (current) regulations authorize its practice. The dissent expands on all these points at length. Post, at 17–21. But as this Court has long made plain, pleas of administrative inconvenience and self-serving regulations never “justify departing from the statute’s clear text.” Pereira , 585 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 18).¶verify

Besides, even viewed in isolation the government’s policy arguments are hardly unassailable. If the government finds filling out forms a chore, it has good company. The world is awash in forms, and rarely do agencies afford individuals the same latitude in completing them that the government seeks for itself today. Take this example: Asylum applicants must use a 12-page form and comply with 14 single-spaced pages of instructions. Failure to do so properly risks having an application returned, losing any chance of relief, or even criminal penalties. DHS, I–589, Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal: Instructions, pp. 5, 14; DHS, I–589 Form. Nor is it obvious the government faces an insurmountable chore here. As we have seen, once the government serves a compliant notice to appear, IIRIRA permits it to send a supplemental notice amending the time and place of an alien’s hearing if logistics require a change. See 8 U. S. C. §1229(a)(2).¶verify

To be sure, the government seeks to leverage this statutory feature to its further advantage. Because it may issue a supplemental notice changing the time and place of the alien’s hearing, the government reasons, requiring an initial and fully compliant notice serves no meaningful purpose. But that much does not follow. True, the government can change the time and place if it must. As written, though, the statute allows the government to invoke the stop-time rule only if it furnishes the alien with a single compliant document explaining what it intends to do and when. We are no more entitled to denigrate this modest statutory promise as some empty formality than we might dismiss as pointless the rules and statutes governing the contents of civil complaints or criminal indictments.¶verify

Just consider the alternative. On the government’s account, it would be free to send a person who is not from this country—someone who may be unfamiliar with English and the habits of American bureaucracies—a series of letters. These might trail in over the course of weeks, months, maybe years, each containing a new morsel of vital information. All of which the individual alien would have to save and compile in order to prepare for a removal hearing. And as soon as the last letter arrives, the alien’s ability to accrue time toward the residency requirement would be suspended indefinitely. Nor is this a wild hypothetical. At oral argument the government contended “[t]here’s nothing that textually limits us” from proceeding in just this fashion. Tr. of Oral Arg. 47.¶verify

The dissent’s policy arguments stretch even further than the government’s. It suggests that the best way to help aliens is to rule against the alien before us. Post , at 4–5, 17–¶verify

21. Unsurprisingly, however, neither Mr. Niz-Chavez nor any of the immigration policy advocates who have filed amicus briefs in this Court share that assessment. And how does the dissent arrive at its judgment anyway? It speculates the government might respond to our decision by disadvantaging aliens in one of two ways. First, it might ambush aliens with last-minute notices. See post , at 19. Alternatively, it might issue compliant notices that trigger the stop-time rule as early as possible, only to amend the time-and-place information shortly before the hearing date. Ibid. But the dissent’s preferred construction does nothing to foreclose either of these possibilities. And even the dissent seems to think another outcome is more likely yet: It says the government may continue serving notices without time and place information in the first instance, only to trigger the stop-time rule later by providing fully compliant notices with time and place information once a hearing date is available. Post , at 18. Nor does the dissent question that this result would help—and certainly not hurt—most aliens.¶verify

In the end, though, all this speculation is beside the point. The dissent tries to predict how the government will react to a ruling that requires it to follow the law and then proceeds to assess the resulting “costs” and “benefits.” Post , at 17, 20–21. But that kind of raw consequentialist calculation plays no role in our decision. Instead, when it comes to the policy arguments championed by the parties and the dissent alike, our points are simple: As usual, there are (at least) two sides to the policy questions before us; a rational Congress could reach the policy judgment the statutory text suggests it did; and no amount of policy-talk can overcome a plain statutory command. Our only job today is to give the law’s terms their ordinary meaning and, in that small way, ensure the federal government does not exceed its statutory license. Interpreting the phrase “a notice to appear” to require a single notice—rather than 2 or 20 documents—does just that.¶verify

*¶verify

At one level, today’s dispute may seem semantic, focused on a single word, a small one at that. But words are how the law constrains power. In this case, the law’s terms ensure that, when the federal government seeks a procedural advantage against an individual, it will at least supply him with a single and reasonably comprehensive statement of the nature of the proceedings against him. If men must turn square corners when they deal with the government, it cannot be too much to expect the government to turn square corners when it deals with them.¶verify

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is¶verify

Reversed.¶verify