Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/17-459_1o13.pdf
Page Number: 41.0

14 

PEREIRA v. SESSIONS 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

interpretation  of  the  stop-time  rule  would  not  prevent  a
similar  type  of  problem  from  arising.    When  the  Govern-
ment sends an initial notice to appear from now on, it may 
be  forced  by  the  Court’s  interpretation  to  guess  that  the 
hearing  will  take  place  far  in  the  future,  only  to  learn
shortly  afterwards  that  the  hearing  is  in  fact  imminent.
An alien lulled into a false sense of security by that initial
notice to appear will have as little meaningful “ ‘opportun-
ity  to  secure  counsel’ ”  and  “time  to  prepare  adequately,” 
ante, at 11, as one who initially received a notice to appear 
without any hearing date. 

C 
Finally,  the  Court  turns  to  “common  sense”  to  support
its preferred reading of the text.  According to the Court, it
should be “obvious” to anyone that “a notice that does not
specify  when  and  where  to  appear  for  a  removal  proceed-
ing is not a ‘notice to appear.’ ”  Ante, at 2, 12.  But what 
the  Court  finds  so  obvious  somehow  managed  to  elude 
every Court of Appeals to consider the question save one. 
See  Moscoso-Castellanos  v.  Lynch,  803  F. 3d  1079,  1083 
(CA9  2015);  O’Garro  v.  U. S.  Attorney  General,  605  Fed. 
Appx. 951, 953 (CA11 2015) (per curiam); Guaman-Yuqui 
v.  Lynch,  786  F. 3d  235,  240  (CA2  2015)  (per  curiam); 
Gonzalez-Garcia  v.  Holder,  770  F. 3d  431,  434–435  (CA6 
2014);  Yi  Di  Wang  v.  Holder,  759  F. 3d  670,  675  (CA7 
2014); Urbina v. Holder, 745 F. 3d 736, 740 (CA4 2014).

That  is  likely  because  the  Court’s  “common  sense”  de-
pends on a very specific understanding of the purpose of a 
notice  to  appear.  In  the  Court’s  eyes,  notices  to  appear
serve  primarily  as  a  vehicle  for  communicating  to  aliens 
when  and  where  they  should  appear  for  their  removal
hearings.  That  is  certainly  a  reasonable  interpretation
with  some  intuitive  force  behind  it.  But  that  is  not  the 
only  possible  understanding  or  even  necessarily  the  best 
one.  As  the  Government  reasonably  explains,  a  notice  to