Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/16-309_h31i.pdf
Page Number: 11.0

Cite as:  582 U. S. ____ (2017) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

law in the course of obtaining it?  Not likely.  And again,
the  same  is  true  with  respect  to  naturalization.  Suppose
that  an  applicant  for  citizenship  fills  out  the  necessary 
paperwork  in  a  government  office  with  a  knife  tucked
away in her handbag (but never mentioned or used).  She 
has  violated  the  law—specifically,  a  statute  criminalizing 
the  possession  of  a  weapon  in  a  federal  building.    See  18 
U. S. C.  §930.    And  she  has  surely  done  so  “in  the  course
of ” procuring citizenship.  But would you say, using Eng-
lish as you ordinarily would, that she has “procure[d]” her 
citizenship  “contrary  to  law”  (or,  as  you  would  really 
speak,  “illegally”)?  Once  again,  no.  That  is  because  the 
violation  of  law  and  the  acquisition  of  citizenship  are  in
that  example  merely  coincidental:  The  one  has  no  causal 
relation to the other. 

The Government responds to such examples by seeking 
to define them out of the statute, but that effort falls short 
for  multiple  reasons.    According  to  the  Government,  the 
laws to which §1425(a) speaks are only laws “pertaining to
naturalization.”  Brief for United States 20.  But to begin 
with, that claim fails on its own terms.  The Government’s 
proposed limitation has no basis in §1425(a)’s text (which
refers  to  “law”  generally);  it  is  a  deus  ex  machina— 
rationalized only by calling it “necessary,” Tr. of Oral Arg. 
39, and serving only to get the Government out of a tight
interpretive spot.  Indeed, the Government does not really
buy its own argument: At another point, it asserts that an
applicant for citizenship can violate §1425(a) by bribing a
government  official,  see  Brief  for  United  States  16—even 
though  the  law  against  that  conduct  has  nothing  in  par-
ticular  to  do  with  naturalization. 
See  18  U. S. C. 
§201(b)(1).    And  still  more  important,  the  Government’s 
(sometime)  carve-out  does  nothing  to  alter  the  linguistic
understanding  that  gives  force  to  the  examples  the  Gov-
ernment  would  exclude—and  that  applies  just  as  well  to 
every  application  that  would  remain.  Laws  pertaining  to