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Page Number: 50

18 

UNITED STATES v. HANSEN 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

  For example, one does not know from today’s determina-
tion whether  a  noncitizen  must  actually  complete the  un-
derlying  offense  of  coming  to,  entering,  or  residing  in  the 
United States (à la aiding and abetting) or whether comple-
tion is not a prerequisite for prosecution (à la solicitation).  
This sort of uncertainty—the clarification of which, by the 
way,  should  be  Congress’s  policy  prerogative—may  itself 
dissuade people from engaging in protected speech.8  Thus, 
regardless  of whether  a  potential speaker  has the  ability, 
means, and time to track down and interpret this decision 
(or hire a lawyer to do so) to understand what the law re-
quires, the known unknowns of the majority’s course por-
tend further chill. 

B 
  The  majority  attempts  to  downplay  the  encouragement 
provision’s  threat  to  free  expression  by  highlighting  that 
Hansen “fails to identify a single prosecution for ostensibly 
protected expression in the 70 years since Congress enacted 
clause (iv)’s immediate predecessor.”  Ante, at 17–18.  But 
the purported lack of past prosecutions provides no comfort 
for several reasons. 
  The  first  is  that  we  have  already  said  as  much—this 
Court  squarely  rejected  that  kind  of  argument  when  the 
Government raised it in a prior overbreadth challenge.  In 
Stevens,  the  Government  vigorously  asserted  that  it  had 
never  brought  a  prosecution  implicating  the  kind  of  pro-
tected expression that the plain text of the statute in ques-
tion swept in, and that it did not intend to do so.  559 U. S., 
at 480.  The Government “hi[t] this theme hard, invoking 
—————— 

8 The Government also struggled at oral argument before this Court to 
articulate what scenarios the statute would (and would not) reach under 
its theory.  But it notably represented that it did not believe it could val-
idly prosecute a son who reassures his noncitizen mother (who lives un-
lawfully in the United States with him and his family) that she is not a 
burden  on  them  and  that  his  children  love  having  their  grandmother 
around.  See Tr. of Oral Arg. 35.