Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-10_ifjn.pdf
Page Number: 9

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

a predicate offense requires “a genuine nexus to the predi-
cate offense.”  Brief for Petitioner 15.  On this reading, the
means  of  identification  is  at  the  crux  of  what  makes  the 
predicate offense criminal, rather than merely an ancillary 
feature of a payment method.  When the underlying crime
involves fraud or deceit, as many of §1028A’s predicates do,
this entails using a means of identification specifically in a 
fraudulent or deceitful manner. 

To  illustrate,  petitioner  borrows  a  heuristic  from  the 
Sixth Circuit.  See Michael, 882 F. 3d, at 628.  The relevant 
language in §1028A(a)(1) “covers misrepresenting who re-
ceived a certain service,” but not “fraudulent claims regard-
ing how or when a service was performed.”  Brief for Peti-
tioner  15.  In  other  words,  fraud  going  to  identity,  not 
misrepresentation about services actually provided.  Take 
an  ambulance  service  that  actually  transported  patients
but inflated the number of miles driven.  The crux of this 
fraud  was  “how”  services  were  rendered;  the  patients’ 
names were part of the billing process, but ancillary to what 
made  the  conduct  fraudulent.    See  Michael,  882  F. 3d,  at 
628–629.  In contrast, take the pharmacist who swipes in-
formation from the pharmacy’s files and uses it to open a 
bank  account  in  a  patient’s  name.    That  “misuse  of  th[e]
means of identification” would be “integral to” what made
the  conduct  fraudulent,  because  misrepresentation  about 
who was involved was at the crux of the fraud.  Id., at 629. 
In  deciding  between  the  parties’  readings,  one  limited 
and  one  near  limitless,  precedent  and  prudence  require  a
careful  examination  of  §1028A(a)(1)’s  text  and  structure.
While “uses” and “in relation to” are, in isolation, indeter-
minate, the statutory context, taken as a whole, points to a 
narrower reading. 

In interpreting the scope of “uses” and “in relation to,” the 
Court  begins  with  those  terms  themselves.    Both  terms 

B