Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf
Page Number: 23

18 

TRUMP v. HAWAII 

Opinion of the Court 

50;  see  also  Tr.  of  Oral  Arg.  57  (“Presidents  have  wide 
berth  in  this  area  . . .  if  there’s  any  sort  of  emergency.”). 
In  any  event,  no  Congress  that  wanted  to  confer  on  the 
President  only  a  residual  authority  to  address  emergency 
situations would ever use language of the sort in §1182(f ).  
Fairly read, the provision vests authority in the President 
to  impose  additional  limitations  on  entry  beyond  the
grounds  for  exclusion  set  forth  in  the  INA—including  in 
response  to  circumstances  that  might  affect  the  vetting
system or other “interests of the United States.” 

Because plaintiffs do not point to any contradiction with
another  provision  of  the  INA,  the  President  has  not 
exceeded his authority under §1182(f ). 

2 
Plaintiffs  seek  to  locate  additional  limitations  on  the 
scope of §1182(f ) in the statutory background and legisla-
tive  history.  Given  the  clarity  of  the  text,  we  need  not
consider such extra-textual evidence.  See State Farm Fire 
&  Casualty  Co.  v.  United  States  ex  rel.  Rigsby,  580  U. S. 
___,  ___  (2016)  (slip  op.,  at  9).    At  any  rate,  plaintiffs’
evidence supports the plain meaning of the provision.

Drawing  on  legislative  debates  over  §1182(f ),  plaintiffs
suggest  that  the  President’s  suspension  power  should  be
limited  to  exigencies  where  it  would  be  difficult  for  Con-
gress  to  react  promptly.    Precursor  provisions  enacted 
during  the  First  and  Second  World  Wars  confined  the 
President’s  exclusion  authority  to  times  of  “war”  and 
“national emergency.”   See Act of May 22, 1918, §1(a), 40
Stat.  559;  Act  of  June  21,  1941,  ch.  210,  §1, 55  Stat.  252.
When Congress enacted §1182(f ) in 1952, plaintiffs note, it 
borrowed  “nearly  verbatim”  from  those  predecessor  stat-
utes, and one of the bill’s sponsors affirmed that the provi-
sion would apply only during a time of crisis.  According to
plaintiffs,  it  therefore  follows  that  Congress  sought  to
delegate  only  a  similarly  tailored  suspension  power  in