Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/17-459_1o13.pdf
Page Number: 9.0

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

Attorney General promulgated a regulation stating that a
“notice to appear” served on a noncitizen need only provide 
“the  time,  place  and  date  of  the  initial  removal  hearing, 
where  practicable.”  62  Fed.  Reg.  10332  (1997).    Per  that 
regulation,  the  Department  of  Homeland  Security  (DHS),
at least in recent years, almost always serves noncitizens 
with notices that fail to specify the time, place, or date of
initial  removal  hearings  whenever  the  agency  deems  it 
impracticable  to  include  such  information.    See  Brief  for 
Petitioner 14; Brief for Respondent 48–49; Tr. of Oral Arg.
52–53 (Government’s admission that “almost 100 percent” 
of  “notices  to  appear  omit  the  time  and  date  of  the  pro-
ceeding over the last three years”).  Instead, these notices 
state that the times, places, or dates of the initial hearings 
are “to be determined.”  Brief for Petitioner 14. 

In  Matter  of  Camarillo,  25  I. & N.  Dec.  644  (2011),  the
Board  of  Immigration  Appeals  (BIA)  addressed  whether 
such notices trigger the stop-time rule even if they do not 
specify the time and date of the removal proceedings.  The 
BIA concluded that they do.  Id., at 651.  It reasoned that 
the  statutory  phrase  “notice  to  appear  ‘under  section
[1229](a)’ ”  in  the  stop-time  rule  “merely  specifies  the 
document the DHS must serve on the alien to trigger the 
‘stop-time’  rule,”  but  otherwise  imposes  no  “substantive 
requirements” as to what information that document must 
include to trigger the stop-time rule.  Id., at 647. 

C 
Petitioner  Wescley  Fonseca  Pereira  is  a  native  and
citizen  of  Brazil.  In  2000,  at  age  19,  he  was  admitted  to 
the United States as a temporary “non-immigrant visitor.” 
App.  to  Pet.  for  Cert.  3a.    After  his  visa  expired,  he  re-
mained in the United States.  Pereira is married and has 
two  young  daughters,  both  of  whom  are  United States 
citizens.  He  works  as  a  handyman  and,  according  to 
submissions  before  the  Immigration  Court,  is  a  well-