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16 

UNITED STATES v. HANSEN 

Opinion of the Court 

might  have  rightfully  seen  the  express  mens  rea  require-
ment as unnecessary and cut it in a further effort to stream-
line clause (iv).  And in any event, the omission of the un-
necessary modifier is certainly not enough to overcome the 
“presumption of scienter” that typically separates wrongful 
acts  “from  ‘otherwise  innocent  conduct.’ ”    Xiulu  Ruan  v. 
United States, 597 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 5); see 
also Elonis v. United States, 575 U. S. 723, 736–737 (2015). 
  Nor  does  the  scienter  applicable  to  a  distinct  element 
within  clause  (iv)—that  the  defendant  “kno[w]”  or  “reck-
less[ly] disregard . . . the fact that” the noncitizen’s “coming 
to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law”—tell 
us anything about the mens rea for “encourages or induces.”  
Many criminal statutes do not require knowledge of illegal-
ity,  but  rather  only  “ ‘factual  knowledge  as  distinguished 
from knowledge of the law.’ ”  Bryan v. United States, 524 
U. S. 184, 192 (1998).  So Congress’s choice to specify a men-
tal state for this element tells us something that we might 
not normally infer, whereas the inclusion of a mens rea re-
quirement for “encourages or induces” would add nothing. 
  It bears emphasis that even if the Government’s reading 
were not the best one, the interpretation is at least “ ‘fairly 
possible’ ”—so the canon of constitutional avoidance would 
still counsel us to adopt it.  Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U. S. 
___,  ___  (2018)  (slip  op.,  at  12).   This canon is normally  a 
valuable  ally  for  criminal  defendants,  who  raise  the  pro-
spect  of  unconstitutional  applications  to  urge  a  narrower 
construction.    But  Hansen  presses  the  clause  toward  the 
most expansive reading possible, effectively asking us to ap-
ply a canon of “ ‘constitutional collision.’ ”  40 F. 4th, at 1059 
(opinion of Bumatay, J.).  This tactic is understandable in 
light of the odd incentives created by the overbreadth doc-
trine, but it is also wrong.  When legislation and the Con-
stitution  brush  up  against  each  other,  our  task  is  to  seek