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Page Number: 39

18 

PATEL v. GARLAND 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

Alliance et al. as Amici Curiae 25.  With so many applica-
tions receiving such abbreviated treatment, who can be sur-
prised that DHS sometimes makes serious errors, or may 
even  be  tempted  to  take  shortcuts  inconsistent  with  the
law?  See  id.,  at  23–27  (documenting  DHS  errors).    Until 
today, courts could correct mistakes like these.  But the ma-
jority’s  construction  of  subparagraph  (B)(i)  will  almost
surely end all that and foreclose judicial review for count-
less law-abiding individuals whose lives may be upended by
bureaucratic misfeasance. 

The majority’s response is hardly satisfying.  The major-
ity does not try to explain how its interpretation fits with 
the usual presumption of judicial reviewability of adminis-
trative actions—a presumption it claims to endorse and no
party before us questions.  Ante, at 17.  Instead, the major-
ity muses that denying green-card applicants any ability to
seek  judicial  review  might  be  “consistent  with  Congress’ 
choice to reduce procedural protections in the context of dis-
cretionary  relief.”    Ante,  at  16.  But  a  hunch  about  unex-
pressed  legislative  intentions  is  no  response  to  our  usual 
presumption of judicial review.  Nor is it any answer to the 
mountain  of  textual  and  contextual  evidence  suggesting 
that Congress limited judicial review only with respect to
second-step  discretionary  decisions,  not  decisions  about 
statutory eligibility. 

Just  look,  too,  at  all  the  guesswork  lurking  behind  the 
majority’s  hunch.    The  majority’s  argument  first  depends 
on  a  hypothesis  that  Congress  intentionally  designed  a
scheme that encourages individuals who receive erroneous
rulings  on  their  green-card  applications  to  overstay  their 
visas and remain in this country unlawfully.  Next, it de-
pends on a second-level hypothesis that Congress replaced 
a presumptive promise of judicial review with a scheme in
which judicial review depends on the happenstance of a gov-
ernmental decision to seek removal.  Finally, the majority’s
position relies on a third supposition—that Congress might