Niz-Chavez v. Garland

P R E L I M I N A R Y P R I N T
Volume 593 U. S. Part 1
Pages 155–193
OFFICIAL REPORTS
OF
T H E S U P R E M E C O U R T
April 29, 2021
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF
reporter of decisions
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155
Syllabus
NIZ-CHAVEZ v. GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL
certiorari
to the united states court of appeals for
the sixth circuit
No. 19–863. Argued November 9, 2020—Decided April 29, 2021
Nonpermanent resident aliens ordered removed from the United States
under federal immigration law may be eligible for discretionary relief
if, among other things, they can establish their continuous presence in
the country for at least 10 years. 8 U. S. C. § 1229b(b)(1). But the so-
called stop-time rule included in the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) provides that the period
of continuous presence “shall be deemed to end . . . when the alien
is served a notice to appear” in a removal proceeding under § 1229a.
§ 1229b(d)(1). The term “notice to appear” is defned as “written notice
. . . specifying ” certain information, such as the charges against the
alien and the time and place at which the removal proceedings will be
held. § 1229(a)(1). A notice that omits any of this statutorily required
information does not trigger the stop-time rule. See Pereira v. Ses-
sions, 585 U. S. –––. Here, the government ordered the removal of peti-
tioner Agusto Niz-Chavez and sent him a document containing the
charges against him. Two months later, it sent a second document,
providing Mr. Niz-Chavez with the time and place of his hearing. The
government contends that because the two documents collectively speci-
fed all statutorily required information for “a notice to appear,”
Mr. Niz-Chavez's continuous presence in the country stopped when he
was served with the second document.
Held: A notice to appear suffcient to trigger the IIRIRA's stop-time rule
is a single document containing all the information about an individual's
removal hearing specifed in § 1229(a)(1). Pp. 160–172.
(a) Section 1229b(d)(1) states that the stop-time rule is triggered by
serving “a notice,” and § 1229(a)(1) explains that “written notice” is “re-
ferred to as a `notice to appear.' ” Congress's decision to use the in-
defnite article “a” suggests it envisioned “a” single notice provided at
a discrete time rather than a series of notices that collectively provide
the required information. While the indefnite article “a” can some-
times be read to permit multiple installments (such as “a manuscript”
delivered over months), that is not true for words like “notice” that can
refer to either a countable object (“a notice”) or a noncountable abstrac-
tion (“suffcient notice”). The inclusion of an indefnite article suggests
Congress used “notice” in its countable sense. More broadly, Congress

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Syllabus
has used indefnite articles to describe other case-initiating pleadings—
such
as 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—and none sug-
gest those documents might be delivered by installment. Nor does the
Dictionary Act aid the government, as that provision merely tells read-
ers of the U. S. Code to assume “words importing the singular include
and apply to several persons, parties, or things.” 1 U. S. C. § 1. That
provision means only that terms describing a single thing (“a notice”)
can apply to more than one of that thing (“ten notices”). While it cer-
tainly allows the government to send multiple notices to appear to mul-
tiple people, it does not mean a notice to appear can consist of multiple
documents. Pp. 160–165.
(b) The IIRIRA's structure and history support requiring the govern-
ment to issue a single notice containing all the required information.
Two related provisions, §§ 1229(e)(1) and 1229a(b)(7), both use a defnite
article with a singular noun (“the notice”) when referring to the govern-
ment's charging document—a combination that again suggests a dis-
crete document. Another provision, § 1229(a)(2)(A), requires “a written
notice” when the government wishes to change an alien's hearing date.
The government does not argue that this provision contemplates provid-
ing “the new time or place of the proceedings” and the “consequences
. . . of failing . . . to attend such proceedings” in separate documents.
Yet the government fails to explain why “a notice to appear” should
operate differently. Finally, the predecessor to today's “notice to ap-
pear” required the government to specify the place and time for
the alien's hearing “in the order to show cause or otherwise.” § 1252(a)
(2)(A). The phrase “or otherwise” has since disappeared, further sug-
gesting that the required details must be included upfront to invoke the
stop-time rule. Indeed, that is how the government itself initially read
the statute. The year after Congress adopted IIRIRA, in the preamble
to a proposed rule implementing these provisions, the government ac-
knowledged that “the language of the amended Act indicat[es] that the
time and place of the hearing must be on the Notice to Appear.” 62
Fed. Reg. 449 (1997). Pp. 165–169.
(c) The government claims that not knowing hearing offcers' avail-
ability when it initiates removal proceedings makes it diffcult to
produce compliant notices. It also claims that it makes little sense to
require time and place information in a notice to appear when that infor-
mation may be later changed. Besides, the government stresses, its
own administrative regulations have always authorized its current prac-
tice. But on the government's account, it would be free to send a per-
son who is not from this country—someone who may be unfamiliar with
English and the habits of American bureaucracies—a series of letters
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Opinion of the Court
over the course of weeks, months, maybe years, each containing a new
morsel
of vital information. Congress could reasonably have wished to
foreclose that possibility. And ultimately, pleas of administrative incon-
venience never “justify departing from the statute's clear text.” Per-
eira, 585 U. S., at –––. The modest threshold Congress provided to in-
voke the stop-time rule is clear from the text and must be complied with
here. Pp. 169–172.
789 Fed. Appx. 523, reversed.
Gorsuch, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Thomas,
Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Barrett, JJ., joined. Kavanaugh,
J., fled a dissenting opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., and Alito, J., joined,
post, p. 172.
David J. Zimmer argued the cause for petitioner. With him
on the briefs were Gerard J. Cedrone and Benjamin Hayes.
Anthony A. Yang argued the cause for respondent. With
him on the brief were Acting Solicitor General Wall, Acting
Assistant Attorney General Clark, Deputy Solicitor Gen-
eral Kneedler, Donald E. Keener, John W. Blakeley, and
Patrick J. Glen.*
Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court.
Anyone who has applied for a passport, fled for Social Se-
curity benefts, or sought a license understands the govern-
ment's affnity 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 fnds some
of its forms frustrating too. The Illegal Immigration Re-
form and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA),
110 Stat. 3009–546, requires the government to serve “a no-
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fled for the American
Immigration Lawyers Association et al. by Holly L. Henderson-Fisher
and David W. Foster; for the National Immigrant Justice Center by Zach-
ary C. Schauf and Charles Roth; and for Thirty-three Former Immigration
Judges et al. by Richard W. Mark and Amer S. Ahmed.
Christopher J. Hajec fled a brief for the Immigration Reform Law Insti-
tute as amicus curiae urging affrmance.
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tice to appear” on individuals it wishes to remove from this
country
. At frst 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 fexibility, allow-
ing its offcials to provide information in separate mailings
(as many as they wish) over time (as long as they fnd con-
venient). The question for us is whether the law Congress
adopted tolerates the government's preferred practice.
I
For more than a century, Congress has afforded the Attor-
ney General (or other executive offcials) discretion to allow
otherwise removable aliens to remain in the country. An
alien seeking to establish his eligibility for that kind of dis-
cretionary 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 charac-
ter; 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).
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 Cisneros-Gonzales, 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).
All of which invites the question: What qualifes as a notice
to appear suffcient to trigger the stop-time rule? IIRIRA
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defnes a notice to appear as “written notice . . . specifying ”
se
veral 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.
This seemingly simple rule has generated outsized contro-
versy. 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
suffcient to trigger the stop-time rule. It insisted that pro-
ceeding this way served an important governmental interest
too: If it waited to issue notices until the calendars of its
hearing offcers became clear, aliens would accrue too much
time toward the presence requirement. Ultimately, how-
ever, this Court rejected the government's practice in Per-
eira 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
stop-time rule by sending notices to appear that omitted
statutorily required information. Id., at –––.
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 stat-
utory subsection, § 1229(a)(2), Congress expressly contem-
plated that possibility. But, at least in cases like ours, it
seems the gover nment has chosen i nstead to conti nue
down the same old path. Here, the gover nment 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,
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the gover nment 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 fnishes delivering all the statutorily pre-
scribed information. The government says it needs this
kind of fexibility to send information piecemeal. It even
suggests it should be allowed to spread the statutorily man-
dated information over as many documents and as much time
as it wishes.
Some circuits have accepted the government's notice-by-
installment 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 confict, 590 U. S. ––– (2020).
II
When called on to resolve a dispute over a statute's mean-
ing, 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 –––.
When exhausting those clues enables us to resolve the inter-
pretive question put to us, our “sole function” is to apply the
law as we fnd it, Lamie v. United States Trustee, 540 U. S.
526, 534 (2004) (internal quotation marks omitted), not defer
to some conficting reading the government might advance.
A
In this case, our interpretive task begins with two stat-
utory provisions we have already touched on. The frst,
§ 1229b(d)(1), states that the stop-time rule is triggered
“when the alien is served a notice to appear under section
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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 Con-
gress has specifed. 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.
Nor is the government's response (echoed by the dis-
sent) entirely satisfying. The government submits that
§ 1229(a)(1) defnes 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 178
(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 defned term (“notice to appear”)
and modifes the entire defnition. 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” wr itten notice cont ai ni ng a l l the required
information.
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 de-
fned term in § 1229(a)(1). On its view, we should read the
statute as if the article came inside the defned term. Post,
at 178–179. But that's not how the law is written, and the
dissent never explains what authority might allow us to un-
dertake the statutory rearranging it advocates.
1
Nor does
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” doc-
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any of this help when it comes to § 1229b(d)(1), the provision
that
actually creates the stop-time rule, for that statute sep-
arately speaks of “a” notice to appear. Not once but twice
it seems Congress contemplated “a” single document.
Perhaps recognizing this much, the government and dis-
sent pivot and focus their efforts in a different direction.
Now, they remind us that “[t]he indefnite 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 181–182. The government observes, for example, that a
writer can publish “a” story serially, or an author may de-
liver “a” manuscript chapter by chapter. Brief in Opposi-
tion 10. The dissent offers its own illustrations, highlight-
ing that “a job application” and “a contract” also can be
prepared in parts. Post, at 181. So even if IIRIRA speaks
repeatedly of “a” notice to appear, the government and dis-
sent contend, it remains possible that Congress meant to
allow that notice to come over time and in pieces.
The trouble with this response is that everyone admits lan-
guage doesn't always work this way. To build on an illustra-
tion 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 –––; see post,
at 181. 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 frst impressions.
Start with customary usage. Normally, indefnite 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
trine, id., at 462, which applies only in exceptional circumstances to obvi-
ous 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
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would say “she wrote manuscript” or “he sent job applica-
ti
on.” See The Chicago Manual of Style § 5.7, p. 227 (17th
ed. 2017); see also R. Huddleston & G. Pullum, The Cam-
bridge Grammar of the English Language § 3.1, p. 334 (2002).
By contrast, noncountable nouns—including abstractions
like “cowardice” or “fun”—“almost never take indefnite arti-
cles.” 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.”
These customs matter because the key term before us (no-
tice) can refer to either a countable object (“a notice,” “three
notices”) or a noncountable abstraction (“suffcient notice,”
“proper notice”). Congress's decision to use the indefnite
article “a” thus supplies some evidence that it used the term
in the frst of these senses—as a discrete, countable thing.
All of which suggests that the government must issue a sin-
gle statutorily compliant document to trigger the stop-time
rule. If IIRIRA had meant to endow the government with
the fexibility 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 govern-
ment provides “notice” (or perhaps “suffcient notice”) of
the mandated information—indicating an indifference about
whether notice should come all at once or by installment.
Of course this is just a clue. Sometimes Congress's stat-
utes stray a good way from ordinary English. Sometimes,
too, Congress chooses to endow seemingly familiar words
with specialized defnitions. 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.
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
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“like an indictment in a criminal case [or] a complaint in a
civ
il 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
indefnite article to refer to a single document—an indict-
ment, 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 pro-
ceedings 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
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 in-
struction 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.
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 182. 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).
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Think of the problem this way: Suppose a statute made it
a
crime to vandalize “a” bank. Under the Dictionary Act,
someone who vandalizes fve banks could not avoid prosecu-
tion on the ground that he vandalized more than one. Now
take a hypothetical closer to this case—a person who vandal-
izes 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 defned “bank” to include its constituent parts, not
on what the Dictionary Act says about the word “a.”
B
To the extent any doubt remains about the meaning of the
two specifc statutes before us, we believe a wider look at
IIRIRA's statutory structure and history enough to re-
solve it.
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 i n-
structed, “the Notice to Appear shall include a statement
that” the government has complied with certain special re-
quirements. Ibid. (emphasis added). Here again we en-
counter an article coupled with a singular noun (“the No-
tice”), 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 re-
quired the government to provide the information, full stop.
Once more, too, the government's response is less than sat-
isfying. 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 let-
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ters 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 sim-
ply refect 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 specifc document in which the govern-
ment can (and must) “include” the required certifcation.
3
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 defnite article with a
singular noun (“the notice”). And by speaking of “the no-
tice” 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
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 install-
ments.” Post, at 185. 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.

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moment when the fnal installment arrives. See post, at
184
–185. But if that's what Congress meant, this was surely
an awkward way of saying so.
Section 1229(a)(2) adds to the government's growing list
of problems. That provision applies when offcials 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 sing le document —it's not exactly obvious
why the phrase “a notice to appear” found next door in
§ 1229(a)(1) should operate differently.
4
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.) (em-
phasis 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 in-
formation must be included in a notice to appear, not “or
otherwise.” Nor was the alteration an insensible one. Re-
call that IIRIRA also created the stop-time rule and pegged
it to the service of a notice to appear. A rational Congress
4
The dissent seeks to raise the cudgel on the government's behalf, ar-
guing that § 1229(a)(2) does permit multiple documents. Post, at 185–186.
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.
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easily could have thought that measuring an alien's period of
residence
against the service date of a discrete document was
preferable to trying to measure it against a constellation of
moving pieces.
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 I–
221.” 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 187.
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 infltrated the Executive Branch
too. Post, at 181.
5
Perhaps, though, what's really going on here has nothing
to do with labels like that. Perhaps there's a simpler expla-
nation. 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 off-
cials with less fexibility 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 bu-
reaucratic fexibility. We simply seek the law's ordinary
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 187. That the government let slip (at
least once) that it understood the plain import of IIRIRA's revisions re-
mains telling.
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meaning. Today, a long parade of textual and contextual
clues
persuade us of this statute's ordinary meaning. If, in
the process of discerning that meaning, we happen to consult
grammar and dictionary defnitions—along with statutory
structure and history—we do so because the rules that gov-
ern language often inform how ordinary people understand
the rules that govern them.
III
Ultimately, the government is forced to abandon any pre-
tense 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 offcers'
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 187–192. 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 –––.
Besides, even viewed in isolation the government's policy
arguments are hardly unassailable. If the government fnds
flling 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–
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589 Form. Nor is it obvious the government faces an insur-
mount
able chore here. As we have seen, once the govern-
ment 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).
To be sure, the government seeks to leverage this statu-
tory 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.
Just consider the alternative. On the government's ac-
count, 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 com-
pile 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 in-
defnitely. Nor is this a wild hypothetical. At oral argu-
ment the government contended “[t]here's nothing that tex-
tually limits us” from proceeding in just this fashion. Tr. of
Oral Arg. 47.
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 175–
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176, 187–192. Unsurprisingly, however, neither Mr. Niz-
Chavez
nor any of the immigration policy advocates who
have fled 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 190.
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 dis-
sent seems to think another outcome is more likely yet: It
says the government may continue serving notices without
time and place information in the frst instance, only to trig-
ger the stop-time rule later by providing fully compliant
notices with time and place information once a hearing date
is available. Post, at 189. Nor does the dissent question
that this result would help—and certainly not hurt—most
aliens.
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 pro-
ceeds to assess the resulting “costs” and “benefts.” Post, at
188, 191–192. But that kind of raw consequentialist calcula-
tion 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 re-
quire a single notice—rather than 2 or 20 documents—does
just that.
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***
A
t 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 en-
sure 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 can-
not be too much to expect the government to turn square
corners when it deals with them.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Cir-
cuit is
Reversed.
Justice Kavanaugh, with whom The Chief Justice
and Justice Alito join, dissenting.
Agusto Niz-Chavez is a native and citizen of Guatemala.
In 2005, Niz-Chavez unlawfully entered the United States
through the southern border and eventually settled in De-
troit. In 2013, the Government initiated removal proceed-
ings against Niz-Chavez. After the removal hearings, an
Immigration Judge ordered Niz-Chavez to either voluntarily
depart from the United States within 30 days or else be re-
moved to Guatemala.
The Court today casts aside the Immigration Judge's order
and allows Niz-Chavez to go back to immigration court to
seek cancellation of removal. Why? The Court says that
Niz-Chavez did not receive proper notice of his removal pro-
ceedings because he received notice in two documents rather
than one. The Court so holds even though Niz-Chavez (i)
received all the statutorily required information about his
removal proceedings, including the time and place of the re-
moval hearing; (ii) was not prejudiced in any way by receiv-
ing notice in two documents rather than one; and (iii) in fact
appeared with counsel at his scheduled removal hearing.
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173
Kavanaugh, J., dissenting
The Court's decision contravenes Congress's detailed re-
quirements
for a noncitizen to obtain cancellation of removal.
When the Government seeks to remove a noncitizen such as
Niz-Chavez who is unlawfully in the country, it begins the
process by sending the noncitizen a notice to appear for
removal proceedings. 8 U. S. C. § 1229(a)(1). In the sub-
sequent removal proceedings before an immigration judge,
the noncitizen may contest the grounds for removal and
may also ask the immigration judge to grant various forms
of relief, including discretionary cancellation of removal.
§§ 1229b(a), (b)(1).
A noncitizen's eligibility for cancellation of removal de-
pends in part on when the noncitizen received notice of the
removal proceeding. To be eligible, a noncitizen who is a
nonpermanent resident must have been continuously present
in the United States for at least 10 years. § 1229b(b)(1)(A).
The 10-year clock stops, however, when the noncitizen is
served “a notice to appear” for the removal proceeding.
§ 1229b(d)(1).
Because service of a notice to appear stops the 10-year
clock and may make the noncitizen ineligible for cancellation
of removal, noncitizens who want to apply for cancellation of
removal (and courts) must know what constitutes a notice
to appear. Federal immigration law answers that question.
The relevant statute defnes a notice to appear as “written
notice,” which must be served in person or by mail and which
provides certain required information, such as the alleged
grounds for removal and the time and place of the removal
hearing. § 1229(a)(1); see Pereira v. Sessions, 585 U. S.
–––, ––– – ––– (2018) (§ 1229(a)(1) provides the defnition of a
notice to appear for purposes of the 10-year clock).
In this case, the United States commenced removal pro-
ceedings against Niz-Chavez in 2013—eight years after he
entered the United States. The Government served two
documents on Niz-Chavez. In March 2013, Niz-Chavez re-
ceived the frst document, which notifed him that he was
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being charged as removable because he was unlawfully in
the
country. It explained that he would have to appear for
a removal hearing at the immigration court in Detroit at
a time to be set in the future. Two months later, he re-
ceived the second document, which notifed him that the re-
moval hearing would occur at the immigration court in De-
troit on June 25, 2013, at 8:30 a.m. The two documents
together included all the statutorily required information.
See § 1229(a)(1). Niz-Chavez appeared with counsel at the
scheduled hearing on June 25, 2013.
At the hearing, Niz-Chavez conceded that he was remov-
able because he was unlawfully in the country. Moreover,
Niz-Chavez did not request cancellation of removal or sug-
gest that he was eligible for cancellation of removal, presum-
ably because he received the notice to appear long before he
had accrued 10 years of continuous presence in the United
States. Af ter further hearings, an Immigration Judge
found Niz-Chavez removable as charged and ordered Niz-
Chavez to either voluntarily depart from the United States
within 30 days or else be removed to Guatemala.
Niz-Chavez now argues that he in fact should be eli-
gible for cancellation of removal. He emphasizes that the
continuous-presence clock stops upon service of “a notice to
appear.” § 1229b(d)(1). That language, according to Niz-
Chavez, means that, to stop the 10-year clock, the Govern-
ment must provide all the required information in one docu-
ment, rather than two. The Government responds that the
statute includes no such requirement and that the Govern-
ment may serve a notice to appear in two documents, with
the time and place of the hearing coming in the second docu-
ment and the 10-year clock stopping then.
The Court today agrees with Niz-Chavez that, in order to
stop the 10-year clock, the Government must provide written
notice in one document, not two. I fnd the Court's conclu-
sion rather perplexing as a matter of statutory interpreta-
tion and common sense. I therefore respectfully dissent.
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Kavanaugh, J., dissenting
I
A
Th
is is not the Court's frst case involving a notice to ap-
pear for removal proceedings. In Pereira v. Sessions, the
Court held that a notice that does not provide the time and
place of the hearing does not stop the 10-year continuous-
presence clock. 585 U. S. –––, ––– (2018). Before Pereira,
the Government (in some Circuits) could send two docu-
ments as it did in this case and stop the clock when it served
the frst, incomplete document. See id., at –––– –––, and
n. 4. In the wake of Pereira, however, service of the frst
document no longer stops the clock. The clock does not stop
until the Government also provides the time and place of
the hearing.
In Pereira, the Court did not address the distinct question
whether the Government may serve a notice to appear in
two documents instead of one, with the time and place of the
hearing coming in the second document and the clock then
stopping upon service of the second document. We must de-
cide that question here.
After Pereira, why would the Government still provide
notice in two documents instead of one comprehensive docu-
ment? Simple. When the Government wants to inform the
noncitizen that it is initiating removal proceedings, the Gov-
ernment may not yet know exactly when the hearing will
occur. So the Government sometimes will frst inform the
noncitizen of the charges, and only later provide the exact
time and place of the hearing.
After Pereira, the Government gains no advantage by
providing notice in two documents, because the 10-year
continuous-presence clock does not stop until the noncitizen
has also been served the statutorily required time and place
information. See id., at –––. If anyone gains an advantage
from two-document notice after Pereira, it is noncitizens.
They can learn of the removal proceedings and begin prepar-

176 NIZ-CHA
VEZ v. GARLAND
Kavanaugh, J., dissenting
ing a defense even before they receive notice of the time and
place
of the hearing. So receiving notice in two documents
can beneft noncitizens.
Even though receiving notice in two documents would ben-
eft noncitizens as a group by giving them more time to
prepare for hearings, Niz-Chavez understandably seeks to
advance his own interests in not having the 10-year clock
stopped in his individual case. Niz-Chavez says that to stop
the 10-year clock, the Government must provide a single doc-
ument with all the statutorily required information, because
the statute requires “a notice to appear.”
B
The Court agrees with Niz-Chavez, resting its conclusion
almost entirely on the word “a” in the statutory phrase “a
notice to appear.” As the Court notes, Congress provided
that the 10-year continuous-presence clock stops when the
noncitizen is served “a notice to appear” for removal pro-
ceedings. 8 U. S. C. § 1229b(d)(1).
1
The Court says that the
article “a” means that the 10-year continuous-presence clock
stops only if the Government serves a single document with
all the required information to initiate the removal proceed-
ings, not two documents with all the required information.
In my respectful view, the Court's textual interpretation
contains two independent faws, either of which suffces to
defeat the Court's conclusion.
First, the Court's analysis disregards the statutory defni-
tion of a notice to appear.
When a statute defnes a term, we ordinarily follow the
statutory defnition. Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v. Somers,
583 U. S. 149, 160 (2018); Burgess v. United States, 553 U. S.
1
As relevant here, the st atute prov ides: “For pur poses of th is
section, any period of continuous residence or continuous physical pres-
ence in the United States shall be deemed to end . . . when the alien
is served a notice to appear under sec ti on 1229(a) of th is title. ”
§ 1229b(d)(1).
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124, 129–130 (2008). Here, the statute defnes a notice to
appear
in a somewhat oddly worded way. The defnition is
located in the statutory provision that specifes how the Gov-
ernment must initiate removal proceedings. That provision
states: “written notice (in this section referred to as a
`notice to appear') shall be given in person to the alien
(or, if personal service is not practicable, through service by
mail to the alien or to the alien's counsel of record, if any)
specifying ” 10 categories of information relevant to the re-
moval proceedings. § 1229(a)(1) (emphasis added); see also
Pereira, 585 U. S., at ––– – ––– (§ 1229(a)(1) provides the
defnition of a notice to appear for purposes of the 10-year
clock).
2
2
Section 1229(a)(1) provides: “In removal proceedings under section
1229a of this title, written notice (in this section referred to as a `notice to
appear') shall be given in person to the alien (or, if personal service is not
practicable, through service by mail to the alien or to the alien's counsel
of record, if any) specifying the following:
“(A) The nature of the proceedings against the alien.
“(B) The legal authority under which the proceedings are conducted.
“(C) The acts or conduct alleged to be in violation of law.
“(D) The charges against the alien and the statutory provisions alleged
to have been violated.
“(E) The alien may be represented by counsel and the alien will be
provided (i) a period of time to secure counsel under subsection (b)(1) and
(ii) a current list of counsel prepared under subsection (b)(2).
“(F)(i) The requirement that the alien must immediately provide (or
have provided) the Attorney General with a written record of an address
and telephone number (if any) at which the alien may be contacted re-
specting proceedings under section 1229a of this title.
“(ii) The requirement that the alien must provide the Attorney General
immediately with a written record of any change of the alien's address or
telephone number.
“(iii) The consequences under section 1229a(b)(5) of this title of failure
to provide address and telephone information pursuant to this
subparagraph.
“(G)(i) The time and place at which the proceedings will be held.
“(ii) The consequences under section 1229a(b)(5) of this title of the
fai lure, except under excepti ona l circumst ances, to appear at such
proceedings.”
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In other words, the statute provides that the 10-year
conti
nuous-presence clock stops upon service of “a notice to
appear,” and then goes on to defne a notice to appear as
“written notice.” The statute nowhere says that written no-
tice must be provided in a single document. Rather, the
statute lists three essential requirements for the Govern-
ment to notify a noncitizen of removal proceedings: (i) the
notice must be “written notice”; (ii) it must be “given in per-
son,” if practicable, or else by mail; and (iii) the notice must
include the required information, such as the grounds for re-
moval and the time and place of the hearing. § 1229(a)(1).
Nothing more. But the Court today nonetheless imposes a
fourth, atextual single-document requirement for the notice
to stop the 10-year clock.
If Congress actually wanted to require a single document
to stop the 10-year clock, Congress easily could have (and
surely would have) said so. After all, the statute supplies
comprehensive and detailed instructions about how the Gov-
ernment must serve a notice to appear and what information
must be included. But the statute never says that all the
required information must appear in a single document.
Notice delivered in two installments can readily satisfy all
the requirements of a notice to appear. Consider the notice
served on Niz-Chavez in this case. It was written notice.
It was properly served. It contained all the statutorily re-
quired information, including the time and place of the hear-
ing. The statute contemplates nothing more of a notice to
appear.
Instead of applying that clear statutory defnition of a no-
tice to appear as written notice, the Court dismisses the
defnition's relevance on a novel basis not raised by Niz-
Chavez, not advanced by any amicus brief, and not adopted
by any lower courts—the placement of a quotation mark.
The Court reasons that the quotation marks in the statutory
defnition appear around only the words “notice to appear,”
rather than around “a notice to appear.” On that basis, the
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Court insists that the phrase “written notice” defnes only
the
three words “notice to appear”—without the “a.” And
substituting “written notice” for “notice to appear” in the
statutory provision addressing the 10-year clock would still
require “a” written notice, which the Court interprets to
mean a single document.
According to the Court, Congress thus imposed a single-
document requirement for stopping the 10-year clock not by
actually saying that a single document is required, but rather
by placing quotation marks around the words a “notice to
appear” rather than “a notice to appear” in the statutory
defnition. There is a good reason that Niz-Chavez did not
raise this argument, that no amicus brief advanced this ar-
gument, and that no court has adopted it. The Court's the-
ory is mistaken and implausible. If Congress wanted to
require a single document in order to stop the 10-year clock,
it is hard to imagine a more obscure way of doing so.
Although “the meaning of a statute will typically heed the
commands of its punctuation,” “a purported plain-meaning
analysis based only on punctuation is necessarily incomplete
and runs the risk of distorting a statute's true meaning.”
United States Nat. Bank of Ore. v. Independent Ins. Agents
of America, Inc., 508 U. S. 439, 454 (1993). The Court has
declined to rely on “the deployment of quotation marks”
when “all of the other evidence from the statute points the
other way.” Id., at 455.
So it is here. The Court's quotation-mark theory contra-
venes the statutory text and structure. The text and struc-
ture make clear that the notice that initiates removal pro-
ceedings is the same notice that stops the 10-year clock.
See §§ 1229(a)(1), 1229b(d)(1). But the Court's interpreta-
tion treats them as different by imposing different require-
ments for a notice that stops the 10-year clock and for a no-
tice that initiates removal proceedings. To reiterate, to
initiate removal proceedings, the Government must provide
the noncitizen with “written notice.” The Court does not
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dispute (and cannot dispute) that the Government can initi-
ate
removal proceedings by providing written notice in more
than one document, so long as the notice encompasses all
the statutorily required information. Nonetheless, for that
written notice to also stop the 10-year clock, the Court says
that the written notice must be provided in a single docu-
ment rather than two documents because the 10-year clock
provision requires “a notice to appear.” Stated otherwise,
under the Court's novel theory, the Government may use two
documents to initiate removal proceedings, but the Govern-
ment must use a single document if it also wants to stop the
continuous-presence clock—even though Congress explicitly
linked the notice that stops the clock to the notice that initi-
ates removal proceedings. Put simply, the Court's argu-
ment based on the placement of a quotation mark contra-
venes the straightforward statutory structure and makes
little sense.
The Court's novel interpretation also creates another in-
consistency. Section 1229a(b)(5) explains that a noncitizen
who fails to attend a removal hearing may be removed in
absentia if he had previously been provided with “written
notice” under § 1229(a)(1). Under the Court's interpreta-
tion, it is hard to see why such notice would need to be pro-
vided in a single document—there are no dangling uses of
“a” to latch onto in that provision. It makes no sense that
two-document notice could justify removal in absentia but
could not stop the continuous-presence clock.
In sum, the Court's theory for disregarding the statutory
defnition is both novel and unpersuasive. The Court's
quotation-mark argument fails because it distorts the “stat-
ute's true meaning.” United States Nat. Bank of Ore., 508
U. S., at 454. When the statutory defnition of a notice to
appear as “written notice” is correctly applied, instead of
sidestepped, it readily resolves what should have been a very
simple statutory case.
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Second, even if there were no defnition in this statute and
we
therefore had to focus solely on the term “a notice to
appear” in isolation, the Court's interpretation of that phrase
would still fail.
Ordinary meaning and literal meaning are two different
things. And judges interpreting statutes should follow or-
dinary meaning, not literal meaning. See, e. g., McBoyle v.
United States, 283 U. S. 25, 26 (1931) (in ordinary speech,
“vehicle” does not cover an aircraft, even though “etymologi-
cally it is possible to use the word” that way); see also A.
Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation 24 (1997) (a “good textual-
ist is not a literalist”). The Court here, however, relies
heavily on literal meaning: The Court interprets the word
“a” in the phrase “a notice to appear” to literally require the
Government to serve one (and only one) document. In the
Court's words, “a notice” requires “ `a' single document con-
taining the required information.” Ante, at 161.
As a matter of ordinary parlance, however, the word “a”
is not a one-size-fts-all word. As relevant here, the word
“a” is sometimes used to modify a single thing that must be
delivered in one package, but it is sometimes used to modify
a single thing that can be delivered in multiple installments,
rather than in one installment. Context is critical to deter-
mine the proper meaning of “a” in a particular phrase. Con-
sider some examples. A car dealership that promises to
ship “a car” to a customer has not fulflled its obligation if it
sends the customer one car part at a time. By contrast, it
is common to submit “a job application” by sending a resume
frst and then references as they are available. When the
fnal reference arrives, the applicant has submitted “a job
application.” Similarly, an author might submit chapters of
a novel to an editor one at a time, as they are ready. Upon
submission of the fnal chapter, the author undoubtedly has
submitted “a manuscript.” “A contract” likewise can be “es-
tablished by multiple documents.” Secretary of U. S. Air
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Force v. Commemorative Air Force, 585 F. 3d 895, 901 (CA6
2009).
The list goes on.
As those examples demonstrate, and as the Court acknowl-
edges, the article “a” can be perfectly consistent with deliv-
ery in installments. And in this case, the better reading of
the article “a” is that it does not require delivery in only one
installment. A notice to appear for a removal hearing is
more like a job application, a manuscript, and a contract than
it is like a car. A notice to appear conveys information, like
a job application, a manuscript, and a contract. And unlike
a car, a notice to appear is easy for the recipient to assemble
from its constituent installments.
The Court prefers a different analogy. To buttress its in-
terpretation, the Court analogizes the notice to appear to
legal documents that initiate criminal cases, like indictments.
The Court reasons that “an indictment” traditionally pro-
vides all the required information in a single document, so
“a notice to appear” must do so as well. Ante, at 164.
But that analogy is misplaced. An indictment generally
provides charging information. By contrast, a notice to ap-
pear provides charging information and logistical calendar-
ing information that is not always knowable at the time of
charging. As the Court said in Pereira, a notice to appear
is more than just a charging document because it serves “an-
other equally integral function: telling a noncitizen when and
where to appear.” See 585 U. S., at –––, n. 7. In other
words, a notice to appear is akin to a charging document plus
a calendaring document. It is therefore easy to understand
why a notice to appear might require two installments while
an indictment requires only one. The analogy to an in-
dic tment ac tua l ly cuts strong ly again st the Cour t's
interpretation.
In addition, interpreting “a notice to appear” to allow de-
livery in two documents makes much more sense in context
here because it allows the Government to alert the nonciti-
zen of the charges well before a time and place have been
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set for the hearing. That affords the noncitizen more time
to
prepare a defense. And a noncitizen suffers no prejudice
from receiving notice in two documents rather than one, as
Niz-Chavez's case amply demonstrates. In short, a nonciti-
zen gains something and loses nothing meaningful from re-
ceiving all the information in two documents. (The same
cannot be said for receiving a car in two installments, for
example.)
The Court's interpretation, by contrast, spawns a litany of
absurdities. For example, under the Court's interpretation,
the 10-year clock does not stop if the noncitizen receives the
two separate documents on the same day but in different
envelopes. But the clock does stop if the noncitizen receives
the two documents in one envelope. What sense does that
make? Moreover, if a noncitizen receives a frst document
without a time and place and a second document with only
the time and place, that does not stop the clock under the
Court's rule. But if a noncitizen receives a frst document
with all the information including the time and place and
then a second document with all the information and a new
time and place, that frst document does stop the clock under
the Court's rule. What sense does that make?
Indeed, the Court deems Niz-Chavez to have never re-
ceived proper notice of the hearing even though he received
all the statutorily required information and actually ap-
peared with counsel at the hearing. Again, what sense does
that make?
The Court blames those absurdities on Congress and says
that Congress would have chosen to omit the article “a” if it
wanted to allow two documents. The Court's apparent the-
ory is that Congress deliberately employed the word “a” to
obliquely impose an additional procedural obligation on the
Government when the Government initiates removal pro-
ceedings against a noncitizen and wants to stop the 10-year
clock. That theory is no more plausible than the Court's
frst theory that Congress used the placement of a quotation

184 NIZ-CHA
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mark to impose a new procedural obligation. Once again, if
Congress
wanted to require the Government to send a notice
to appear in one document rather than two documents in
order to stop the 10-year clock, Congress easily could have
said so, and undoubtedly would have said so. But it did not.
The bottom line is that this new single-document require-
ment comes from this Court, not Congress. The Court's at-
tempt to defect blame is unpersuasive.
In sum, the Court's interpretation of the statutory text is
wrong for two independent reasons, either of which suffces
to defeat the Court's conclusion. First, the statutory def-
nition of a notice to appear as “written notice” establishes
that “a notice to appear” can be delivered in two install-
ments. Second, even if there were no statutory defnition,
the best reading of “a notice to appear” in this context is
that the notice can be provided in two installments.
C
The Court seeks to support its textual analysis with ad-
ditional arguments based on structure, statutory history,
and post-enactment regulatory history. Those arguments
do not help.
First, start with structure. The Court says that three
other statutory provisions—§§ 1229(e)(1), 1229a(b)(7), and
1229(a)(2)—imply that a notice to appear is a single docu-
ment. Ante, at 165–168. But none of the three provisions
actually requires the Government to serve a notice to ap-
pear in a single document. Moreover, the language in all
three provisions is consistent with a two-document notice
to appear.
The frst provision, § 1229(e)(1), addresses the Govern-
ment's notice obligations when it seizes a noncitizen at a do-
mestic violence shelter or other location as a precursor to
removal proceedings. In those cases, § 1229(e)(1) says that
“the Notice to Appear shall include” a statement that the
Government has complied with certain protections for non-
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citizens. The Court says that the phrase “the Notice” im-
pl
ies a single document because it pairs an article with
a singular noun. Ante, at 166–167. But the reference in
§ 1229(e)(1) to “the Notice to Appear” does not require or
even contemplate a single document. Like the article “a,”
the article “the” can be used with a thing delivered in con-
stituent installments—consider “the job application,” “the
manuscript,” or “the contract.” Section 1229(e)(1) simply
requires the Government to include the necessary statement
of compliance in one of the documents constituting the notice
to appear.
The second provision, § 1229a(b)(7), concerns noncitizens
who fail to appear at removal proceedings and are ordered
removed in absentia. Section 1229a(b)(7) says that a noncit-
izen in that situation is ineligible for certain kinds of relief
from removal for 10 years if the noncitizen was provided oral
notice “at the time of ” the written notice to appear.
§ 1229a(b)(7). The Court argues that the provision's refer-
ence to “the time of ” the written notice implies that the
written notice is necessarily delivered at one particular mo-
ment, and therefore in one single document. Ante, at 166–
168. On the contrary, the reference in § 1229a(b)(7) to “the
time of ” the written notice is entirely consistent with two-
document notice. Notice qualifes as “a notice to appear”
only when it includes the time and place of the removal hear-
ing. Pereira, 585 U. S., at –––, –––. So when the Govern-
ment uses two documents to serve a notice to appear, “the
time of ” the written notice is the time when the noncitizen
is served the second installment that provides the time and
place of the hearing.
The third provision, § 1229(a)(2), supplies a procedure for
changing the time or place of a removal hearing. It requires
the Government to give a noncitizen “a written notice” of
the new time and place. The Court concludes that the refer-
ence to “a written notice” requires a single document, and
so “a notice to appear” must as well. Ante, at 167. As a

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practical matter, the Government may need only one docu-
ment
to change the time or place of the hearing. But the
word “a” in the phrase “a written notice” does not require
the Government to use a single document, just as the word
“a” in the phrase “a notice to appear” does not. Section
1229(a)(2), like the other two provisions, is entirely consist-
ent with the Government's reading of the statute.
Second, the Court also invokes statutory history to sup-
port its interpretation. But the statutory history does not
advance the Court's argument. Before 1996, the immigra-
tion statute required the Government to serve an “order
to show cause” rather than a notice to appear. 8 U. S. C.
§ 1252b(a)(1) (1994 ed.). Back then, the statute allowed the
Government to notify a noncitizen of the time and place of
the removal hearing either “in the order to show cause or
otherwise.” § 1252b(a)(2)(A) (1994 ed.). The pre-1996 stat-
ute similarly defned an order to show cause as “written
notice”—a broad term that does not require one document.
§ 1252b(a)(1) (1994 ed.). In 1996, Congress made some sig-
nifcant changes. Congress replaced suspension of deporta-
tion with cancellation of removal. Illegal Immigration Re-
form and Immigrant Responsibility Act, §§ 304(a), 308(b)(7),
110 Stat. 3009–587, 3009–615 (codifed at 8 U. S. C. § 1229b).
Congress extended the continuous-presence requirement
to 10 years for nonpermanent residents. 110 Stat. 3009–
594 (codifed at § 1229b(b)(1)(A)). Congress also changed
the order to show cause to a notice to appear, and required
the Government to provide the time and place information
in that notice to appear. 110 Stat. 3009–588 (codifed at
§ 1229(a)(1)(G)(i)). And Congress also provided for the frst
time that service of the notice to appear would stop the
continuous-presence clock. 110 Stat. 3009–595 (codifed at
§ 1229b(d)(1)).
But amid all those changes, Congress never required that
a notice to appear include all the required information in a
single document. The Court nonetheless speculates that a
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peg the end of the continuous-presence clock to a single docu-
ment.
Ante, at 167–168. Maybe so. But a rational Con-
gress also could have declined to impose a single-document
requirement. What matters is that the actual Congress de-
clined to impose a single-document requirement in 1996, just
as it had declined to do before 1996.
Third, the Court turns to post-enactment regulatory his-
tory. According to the Court, language in the preamble to
a 1997 notice of proposed rulemaking issued jointly by the
Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Executive
Offce for Immigration Review suggests that those agencies
once believed that a single document was required. Ante,
at 168; see 62 Fed. Reg. 449. Even assuming that this exec-
utive agency interpretation (found in a preamble to a notice
of proposed rulemaking) could alter the otherwise-best in-
terpretation of the statute, the proposed rule that follows
the preamble undercuts the Court's characterization of the
agencies' 1997 position. The 1997 proposed rule stated that
the Government would include the time and place of the re-
moval hearing in the initial charging document “where prac-
ticable.” Id., at 457 (emphasis added). And the proposed
rule gave alternative instructions for when time and place
information “is not contained” in the initial document. Ibid.
That formulation does not refect a single-document inter-
pretation of the statute. So post-enactment regulatory his-
tory does not help the Court any more than statutory his-
tory; indeed, the post-enactment regulatory history appears
in signifcant tension with the Court's reading.
In the end, the Court's arguments based on structure
and history all fail to answer a very simple question: If Con-
gress wanted all the information to be included in one docu-
ment in order to stop the 10-year clock, why did Congress
not say that all the information must be included in one
document?
II
The Court concludes its opinion by suggesting that its de-
cision will rein in the Federal Government and produce pol-

188 NIZ-CHA
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icy benefts for noncitizens. But the Court's decision will
not
meaningfully beneft noncitizens going forward, and it
will ultimately beneft few if any noncitizens who have al-
ready been notifed of their removal proceedings. Mean-
while, the Court's decision will impose signifcant costs on
the immigration system, which of course means more backlog
for other noncitizens involved in other immigration cases.
To be clear, demonstrating that the Court is wrong to pre-
dict policy benefts from its decision is not ignoring a “stat-
utory command” in favor of policy views. Ante, at 171.
Rather, the point here is that the Court's opinion both
errs as a matter of statutory interpretation and will not
meaningfully help noncitizens, contrary to the Court's
prediction.
Start with the supposed policy beneft that the Court iden-
tifes: The Court suggests that its decision will help nonciti-
zens by stopping the Government from sending numerous
documents (more than two) to noncitizens over a period of
months or even years, perhaps in an effort to confuse them.
But the Court does not point to any examples of the Govern-
ment actually serving a notice to appear in more than
two documents, or over a period of years. After all, why
would the Government do so, absent a need to reschedule a
hearing? It would make no sense. Under the statute as
interpreted in Pereira, the Government cannot stop the
continuous-presence clock until it provides the time and
place of the removal hearing. And the immigration court
cannot commence the removal hearing until the Government
does so. So wasting years and sending multiple documents
to serve a notice to appear would only work to the Govern-
ment's disadvantage because it would delay the hearing.
The supposed “beneft” of the Court's decision, then, is sim-
ply to prevent the Government from doing something that it
has no incentive to do in the frst place. The Court's opinion
cures a problem of its own imagination.
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In fact, the Court's decision will not alter the delivery of
notice
in any meaningful way. Going forward, when the
Government wants to initiate the process of removing a non-
citizen before it knows with certainty the time and place of
the noncitizen's initial removal hearing, the Government can
comply with today's decision in one of three ways. None of
the three alternatives provides meaningful benefts for non-
citizens as compared to the Government's current practice of
sometimes using two documents, and two of the options are
worse for noncitizens.
The frst way that the Government can comply with to-
day's decision is simply to do what it did in Niz-Chavez's
case, with one minor change. The Government can still
send an initial document that informs the noncitizen of all
relevant information except the time and place of the hear-
ing, and then a second document that supplies the time and
place of the hearing. All that the Government needs to do
to comply with today's decision and still stop the 10-year
clock is to repeat all the information from the frst document
in the second document, or alternatively to provide a copy
of the frst document when it serves the second. Delivered
together, the two attachments will form a single, complete
notice to appear even under the Court's strained interpreta-
tion, and therefore will stop the 10-year clock. (Counsel for
Niz-Chavez forthrightly conceded all of this at oral argu-
ment. Tr. of Oral Arg. 24.) The Court insists that this
change in practice will still help noncitizens, but it fails to
explain how. The frst document sent to Niz-Chavez in this
case informed him that he was required to carry the docu-
ment with him at all times. Especially in light of that
obligation, it is hard to see any meaningful beneft in the
Government's resending the same initial document to a non-
citizen once the hearing has been scheduled.
But even if that frst possible method of complying with
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190 NIZ-CHA
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way, it is not clear that the Government will actually choose
that
option. Instead, the Government can comply with to-
day's decision in other ways that will leave noncitizens worse
off. As a second option, for example, the Government
may stop sending the frst document at all and just wait until
it can provide all the information in one comprehensive
document—necessarily closer to the date of the hearing.
That would indisputably comply with today's decision but
would disadvantage noncitizens by affording them less time
to prepare for removal hearings.
The third possible option is no better for noncitizens.
When the Government is ready to initiate removal proceed-
ings but does not know the time and place of a hearing, it
could comply with the Court's decision by sending a docu-
ment with a placeholder time and place of the hearing and
then later serve a second document with the actual time and
place of the hearing. As counsel for Niz-Chavez conceded
at oral argument, doing so would comply with the statute
and allow the Government to stop the continuous-presence
clock upon service of the initial document rather than the
second document. Id., at 15. That option would give non-
citizens less time to accrue continuous presence than when
the Government includes the time and place only in the
second document. Moreover, that approach—sending the
noncitizen two different times or places—is a recipe for
confusion.
In short, the Court's conclusion today will not necessarily
help nonciti zens or constrai n the Gover nment goi ng
forward.
3
3
The Court says that the immigration policy advocates who fled amicus
briefs in support of Niz-Chavez disagree with that assessment of the con-
sequences of today's decision. But those briefs are especially concerned
with the Government stopping the clock with a notice that has a place-
holder date and then sending a later document with the actual date. See,
e. g., Brief for American Immigration Lawyers Association et al. as Amici
Curiae 15–19; Brief for Thirty-Three Former Immigration Judges and
Members of the Board of Immigration Appeals as Amici Curiae 18–23.
Yet as counsel for Niz-Chavez forthrightly conceded at oral argument, the
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But looking backwards, will the Court's decision at least
supply
a beneft to some noncitizens such as Niz-Chavez who
previously received a notice to appear in two documents?
To begin with, any noncitizen who becomes eligible for can-
cellation of removal notwithstanding the noncitizen's receipt
of all the required information in writing before 10 years
of continuous presence would receive a windfall based on
the thinnest of technicalities. Consider Niz-Chavez himself.
He received all the required information before the 10-year
clock had run, he showed up at the hearing with counsel,
and he suffered zero prejudice from receiving notice in two
documents rather than one.
But in any event, that eligibility windfall is unlikely to
translate to any real-world beneft for many noncitizens in
Niz-Chavez's position. To be sure, today's decision means
that some noncitizens in Niz-Chavez's position will now
become eligible for cancellation of removal. But that does
not mean that those noncitizens will actually receive can-
cellation of removal as a result of today's decision. Can-
cellation of removal is discretionary. §§ 1229b(a), (b)(1). In
other words, today's decision means only that immigration
judges have discretion to grant cancellation of removal for
some noncitizens who received notice in two documents.
And there is another apparent catch. Subject to a few
exceptions not relevant here, the number of noncitizens who
may receive cancellation of removal is capped by statute at
only 4,000 per year. § 1229b(e)(1). Those 4,000 spots are
“coveted and scarce”—so scarce, in fact, that in recent years,
“according to the Executive Offce for Immigration Review,
3,500 cancellation of removal slots have been flled on the
frst day” of the year. Matter of Castillo-Perez, 27 I. & N.
Dec. 664, 669 (Atty. Gen. 2019). “The other 500 slots are set
aside to be granted to detained aliens throughout the year.”
Ibid. Perhaps a small handful of the noncitizens who re-
approach adopted by the Court today will still allow that practice going
forward. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 15.
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ceive an eligibility windfall as a result of today's decision will
u
ltimately also receive cancellation of removal. But that is
far from clear.
Meanwhile, the Court's decision will impose substantial
costs and burdens on the immigration system, as the Govern-
ment has detailed. Tr. of Oral Arg. 52–54. Because today's
decision means that many more people who have been in
removal proceedings may be eligible for cancellation of re-
moval, presumably many more people will apply. And proc-
essing all of those extra applications for cancellation of re-
moval will impose costs on the immigration system and
create backlogs and delays for other noncitizens trying to get
their day in court. More than 1.2 million cases are currently
inching their way through the immigration courts. Dept. of
Justice, Executive Offce for Immigration Review Adjudica-
tion Statistics, Pending Cases, New Cases, and Total Com-
pletions (Jan. 7, 2021). If even a small portion of the non-
citizens with pending removal cases become eligible for
cancellation of removal solely because of today's decision, and
then apply for cancellation of removal, the immigration
courts will need to expend substantial resources to timely
consider those applications for relief, even though many of
them are likely to be denied.
In sum, the Court's statutory conclusion in this case will
not necessarily help noncitizens. The Court's statutory in-
terpretation is not likely to create meaningful benefts for
many noncitizens going forward, and it is not likely to create
benefts for many noncitizens looking backwards. And it
will impose serious administrative burdens on an immigra-
tion system that is already overburdened, thereby harming
other noncitizens.
***
As a matter of policy, one may reasonably debate the cir-
cumstances under which a noncitizen who is unlawfully in
the country should be removed and should be eligible for
cancellation of removal. But those policy choices are for the
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political branches. Our job is to follow the law passed by
Congress
and signed by the President.
The statute here requires the Government to serve the
noncitizen with written notice of the charges and other re-
quired information, including the time and place of the hear-
ing. In this case, Niz-Chavez received written notice of the
charges and all the required information, including the time
and place of his hearing. Niz-Chavez appeared with counsel
at his hearing in Detroit on June 25, 2013. Because he re-
ceived written notice to appear before he had accumulated
10 years of continuous physical presence, he is not eligible
for cancellation of removal. I respectfully dissent.
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