Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/17-459_1o13.pdf
Page Number: 42.0

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

15 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

appear  can  also  be  understood  to  serve  primarily  as  a
charging  document.    See  Tr.  of  Oral  Arg.  39–45.    Indeed, 
much  of  §1229(a)(1)  reinforces  that  view  through  the 
informational  requirements  it  imposes  on  notices  to  ap-
pear.  See,  e.g.,  §1229(a)(1)(A)  (“nature  of  the  proceed-
ings”);  §1229(a)(1)(B)  (“legal  authority”  for  “the  proceed-
ings”);  §1229(a)(1)(C) 
conduct  alleged”);
(“acts 
§1229(a)(1)(D)  (“charges  against  the  alien”);  ibid.  (“statu-
tory provisions alleged to have been violated”).  Interpreted
in  this  way,  a  notice  to  appear  hardly  runs  afoul  of 
“common sense” by simply omitting the date and time of a
future removal proceeding.6 

or 

Today’s decision appears even less commonsensical once 
its likely consequences are taken into account.  As already 
noted,  going  forward  the  Government  will  be  forced  to
include  an  arbitrary  date  and  time  on  every  notice  to 
appear  that  it  issues.  See  supra,  at  7–8.    Such  a  system 
will only serve to confuse everyone involved, and the Court 
offers  no  explanation  as  to  why  it  believes  otherwise.
Although the Court expresses surprise at the idea that its 
opinion  will  “ ‘forc[e]  the  Government’  to  guess  when  and 
where  a  hearing  will  take  place,”  ante,  at  12,  n. 6,  it  is 
—————— 

6 The Court responds to this point in two ways.  First, it faults me for 
failing to offer a reason “rooted in the statutory tex[t] for treating time-
and-place information as any less crucial than charging information for
purposes  of  triggering  the  stop-time  rule.”    Ante,  at  13,  n. 7.    But 
exactly  the  same  criticism  can  be  leveled  against  the  Court’s  own 
reading, which noticeably fails to offer any reason “rooted in the statu-
tory  text”  why  time-and-place  information  should  be  treated  as  any 
more  crucial  than  charging  information  for  purposes  of  triggering  the 
stop-time  rule.    Second,  the  Court  also  observes  misleadingly  that 
“there is no reason why a notice to appear should have only one essen-
tial  function,”  and  that  a  notice  to  appear  might  thus  serve  the  dual
purpose  of  both  presenting  charges  and  informing  an  alien  “when  and 
where  to  appear.”    Ibid.  Of  course  it  might,  but  it  is  also  equally
reasonable to  interpret a notice to  appear as serving only one of those
functions.    Under  Chevron,  it  was  the  Government—not  this  Court— 
that was supposed to make that interpretive call.