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Page Number: 35

14 

PATEL v. GARLAND 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

with an appropriate court of appeals.”  According to the ma-
jority, this language would make no sense and do no work 
unless we read subparagraph (B)(i) to bar judicial review of 
any decision under § 1255.  As the majority puts it, subpar-
agraph (D)’s directive preserving judicial review for consti-
tutional  claims  and  questions  of  law  necessarily  implies
that  “something”  must  remain  unamenable  to  judicial  re-
view under subparagraph (B)(i).  Ante, at 9.  And the only 
“remaining  category”  that  could  be  immune  from  judicial
review is subparagraph (B)(i) cases involving “questions of
fact” like Mr. Patel’s.  Ibid. 

This  argument  falters  almost  immediately.    Everyone
agrees that, at the very least, subparagraph (B)(i) precludes 
judicial review of the Attorney General’s second-step discre-
tionary judgments “regarding the granting of relief.”  And 
everyone agrees that subparagraph (D) restores judicial re-
view of these discretionary judgments only to the extent a 
legal question or constitutional claim is in play.  So, for ex-
ample, if the Attorney  General sought to exercise his dis-
cretion to discriminate against an applicant on the basis of 
race, subparagraph (D) would allow judicial review despite
the terms of subparagraph (B)(i).  But if no legal or consti-
tutional  defect  is  alleged,  judicial  review  would  be  imper-
missible.  It is hardly necessary to adopt the majority’s in-
terpretation  to  fit  these  two  provisions  together  and  give 
each real work to do. 

Even more fundamentally, the majority’s argument pro-
ceeds  on  a  mistaken  assumption.    On  its  view,  subpara-
graph (D) must leave something unreviewable under sub-
paragraph  (B)(i)  for  the  former  to  make  any  sense  as  an 
exception.  But  that  takes  far  too  blinkered  a  view  of  the 
statutory scheme; it is not as if these are the only two pro-
visions in our Nation’s immigration laws.  By its terms, sub-
paragraph (D) operates across a whole chapter of the U. S. 
Code.  And in fact, subparagraph (D) undoubtedly performs 
real work as an exception with respect to other provisions