Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-437_new_qol1.pdf
Page Number: 9

Cite as:  593 U. S. ____ (2021) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

removal  order  was  procedurally  flawed  rather  than  sub-
stantively invalid.  There can be no “challenge” to or “collat-
eral attack” on the validity of substantively flawed orders, 
he  reasons,  because  such  orders  are  invalid  from  the  mo-
ment  they  are  entered.  Palomar-Santiago’s  position  ig-
nores the plain meaning of both “challenge” and “collateral 
attack.”  Arguing that a prior removal order was substan-
tively unlawful is a “challenge” to that order.  See Black’s 
Law Dictionary 230 (6th ed. 1990) (“Challenge” means “[t]o
object or except to” or “to put into dispute”). When a chal-
lenge to an order takes place in a separate “proceeding that
has an independent purpose,” such as a later criminal pros-
ecution, it is a “collateral attack.”  Id., at 261. 

Palomar-Santiago  last  invokes  the  canon  of  constitu-
tional avoidance.4  Courts should indeed construe statutes 
“to avoid not only the conclusion that [they are] unconstitu-
tional,  but  also  grave  doubts  upon  that  score.”    United 
States v. Jin Fuey Moy, 241 U. S. 394, 401 (1916).  But this 
canon “has no application in the absence of statutory ambi-
guity.”  United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooper-
ative, 532 U. S. 483, 494 (2001).  Here, the text of §1326(d) 
unambiguously  forecloses  Palomar-Santiago’s  interpreta-
tion. 

* 
The Court holds that each of the statutory requirements 

* 

* 

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4 Palomar-Santiago argues that “a scheme that permits the results of 
an  administrative  proceeding  to  conclusively  establish  a  criminal  of-
fense” raises “due process and separation of powers problems,” which are 
“heightened  when  . . .  the  agency  never  had  the  authority  to  issue  the 
order in the first instance.”  Brief for Respondent 15.  The parties also
strongly disagree about the sufficiency of the paths available for noncit-
izens  to  obtain  review  of  prior  removal  orders  outside  of  an  illegal-
reentry prosecution.  To the extent Palomar-Santiago raises freestanding 
constitutional claims on these bases, they were not raised below and are 
outside the scope of the narrow question this Court granted certiorari to
decide.