Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-1034_3dq4.pdf
Page Number: 9.0

6 

MELLOULI v. LYNCH 

Opinion of the Court 

portation “on convictions, not conduct,” the approach looks
to the statutory definition of the offense of conviction, not 
to the particulars of an alien’s behavior.  Das, The Immi-
gration  Penalties  of  Criminal  Convictions:  Resurrecting
Categorical  Analysis  in  Immigration  Law,  86  N.  Y.  U.  L. 
Rev.  1669,  1701,  1746  (2011).    The  state  conviction  trig-
gers  removal  only  if,  by  definition,  the  underlying  crime 
falls  within  a  category  of  removable  offenses  defined  by 
federal law.  Ibid.  An alien’s actual conduct is irrelevant 
to the inquiry, as the adjudicator must “presume that the 
conviction rested upon nothing more than the least of the
acts  criminalized”  under  the  state  statute.  Moncrieffe  v. 
Holder,  569  U.  S.  ___,  ___  (2013)  (slip  op.,  at  5)  (internal
quotation marks and alterations omitted).4 

The  categorical  approach  “has  a  long  pedigree  in  our 
Nation’s immigration law.”  Id., at ___ (slip op., at 6).  As 
early  as  1913,  courts  examining  the  federal  immigration 
—————— 

major  fraud  or  deceit  statute  with  any  relevant  monetary  threshold,” 
id.,  at  40.    As  categorically  interpreted,  (M)(ii),  the  tax  evasion  provi-
sion,  would  have  no  application,  and  (M)(i),  the  fraud  or  deceit  provi-
sion,  would  apply  only  in  an  extraordinarily  limited  and  haphazard 
manner.    Ibid.   We  therefore  concluded  that  Congress  intended  the 
monetary  thresholds  in  subparagraphs  (M)(i)  and  (M)(ii)  to  apply  “to 
the  specific  circumstances  surrounding  an  offender’s  commission  of 
In  the  main, 
[the  defined]  crime  on  a  specific  occasion.” 
§1227(a)(2)(B)(i), the provision at issue here, has no such circumstance-
specific thrust; its language refers to crimes generically defined. 

Ibid. 

4 A  version  of  this  approach,  known  as  the  “modified  categorical  ap-
proach,” applies to “state statutes that contain several different crimes,
each  described  separately.”    Moncrieffe  v.  Holder,  569  U.  S.  ___,  ___ 
(2013)  (slip  op.,  at  5).    In  such  cases,  “a  court  may  determine  which
particular  offense  the  noncitizen  was  convicted  of  by  examining  the 
charging document and jury instructions, or in the case of a guilty plea, 
the plea agreement, plea colloquy, or some comparable judicial record of 
the  factual  basis  for  the  plea.”    Ibid.  (internal  quotation  marks  omit-
ted).  Off  limits  to  the  adjudicator,  however,  is  any  inquiry  into  the
particular  facts  of  the  case.    Because  the  Government  has  not  argued 
that  this  case  falls  within  the  compass  of  the  modified-categorical 
approach, we need not reach the issue.