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Page Number: 21

16 

BIDEN v. TEXAS 

Opinion of the Court 

entry  to  await  their  exclusion  proceedings  in  Canada  or
Mexico.  The BIA noted the lack of “any evidence that this
is a practice known to Congress” and “the absence of a sup-
porting  regulation.”    In re  Sanchez-Avila,  21  I.  &  N.  Dec. 
444,  465  (1996)  (en  banc).  Congress  responded  mere
months later by adding section 1225(b)(2)(C) to IIRIRA and 
conferring on the Secretary express authority (“may”) to en-
gage in the very practice that the BIA had questioned.  And 
INS acknowledged that clarification shortly thereafter, ex-
plaining  that  section  1225(b)(2)(C)  and  its  implementing 
regulation  “simply  add[ ]  to  the  statute  and  regulation  a
long-standing  practice  of  the  Service.”    62  Fed.  Reg.  445 
(1997).  That modest backstory suggests a more humble role
for section 1225(b)(2)(C) than as a mandatory “safety valve”
for  any  alien  who 
is  not  detained  under  section 
1225(b)(2)(A).

has 

administration 

In  addition  to  contradicting  the  statutory  text  and  con-
text, the novelty of respondents’ interpretation bears men-
tion.  Since IIRIRA’s enactment 26 years ago, every Presi-
dential 
section 
1225(b)(2)(C) as purely discretionary.  Indeed, at the time 
of  IIRIRA’s  enactment  and  in  the  decades  since,  congres-
sional  funding  has  consistently  fallen  well  short  of  the 
amount needed to detain all land-arriving inadmissible al-
iens at the border, yet no administration has ever used sec-
tion 1225(b)(2)(C) to return all such aliens that it could not 
otherwise detain. 

interpreted 

And  the  foreign  affairs  consequences  of  mandating  the
exercise  of  contiguous-territory  return  likewise  confirm 
that the Court of Appeals erred.  Article II of the Constitu-
tion  authorizes  the  Executive  to  “engag[e]  in  direct  diplo-
macy with foreign heads of state and their ministers.”  Zi-
votofsky v. Kerry, 576 U. S. 1, 14 (2015).  Accordingly, the
Court has taken care to avoid “the danger of unwarranted 
judicial  interference  in  the conduct  of  foreign  policy,”  and