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8 

MELLOULI v. LYNCH 

Opinion of the Court 

covered substances.  It made deportable, for example, any 
alien  convicted  of  “import[ing],”  “buy[ing],”  or  “sell[ing]” 
any  “narcotic  drug,”  defined  as  “opium,  coca  leaves,  co-
caine,  or  any  salt,  derivative,  or  preparation  of  opium  or
coca leaves, or cocaine.”  Ch. 202, 42 Stat. 596–597.  Over 
time, Congress amended the statute to include additional 
offenses  and  additional  narcotic  drugs.6   Ultimately,  the
Anti-Drug  Abuse  Act  of  1986  replaced  the  increasingly 
long  list  of  controlled  substances  with  the  now  familiar 
reference to “a controlled substance (as defined in [§802]).” 
See  §1751,  100  Stat.  3207–47.    In  interpreting  successive 
versions of the removal statute, the BIA inquired whether 
the  state  statute  under  which  the  alien  was  convicted 
covered federally controlled substances and not others.7 

Matter of Paulus, 11 I. & N. Dec. 274 (1965), is illustra-
tive.  At the time the BIA decided Paulus, the immigration 
statute made deportable any alien who had been “convicted
of  a  violation  of  . . .  any  law  or  regulation  relating  to  the
illicit  possession  of  or  traffic  in  narcotic  drugs  or  mari- 

—————— 

6 The  1956  version  of  the  statute,  for  example,  permitted  removal  of 
any  alien  “who  at  any  time  has  been  convicted  of  a  violation  of,  or  a 
conspiracy to violate, any law or regulation relating to the illicit posses-
sion  of  or  traffic  in  narcotic  drugs,  or  who  has  been  convicted  of  a 
violation of, or a conspiracy to violate, any law or regulation governing
or  controlling  the  taxing,  manufacture,  production,  compounding, 
transportation,  sale,  exchange,  dispensing,  giving  away,  importation,
exportation,  or  the  possession  for  the  purpose  of  the  manufacture, 
production,  compounding,  transportation,  sale,  exchange,  dispensing,
giving away, importation, or exportation of opium, coca leaves, heroin, 
marihuana,  any  salt  derivative  or  preparation  of  opium  or  coca  leaves 
or  isonipecaine  or  any  addiction-forming  or  addiction-sustaining  opi-
ate.”  Narcotic Control Act of 1956, §301(b), 70 Stat. 575. 

7 See,  e.g.,  Matter  of  Fong,  10  I.  &  N.  Dec.  616,  619  (BIA  1964)  (a
Pennsylvania  conviction  for  unlawful  use  of  a  drug  rendered  alien
removable  because  “every  drug  enumerated  in  the  Pennsylvania  law
[was]  found  to  be  a  narcotic  drug  or  marijuana  within  the  meaning  of
[the  federal  removal  statute]”),  overruled  in  part  on  other  grounds, 
Matter of Sum, 13 I. & N. Dec. 569 (1970).