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

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

13 

Opinion of the Court 

such [a] contradictory and absurd purpose,’ ” United States 
v.  Bryan,  339  U. S.  323,  342  (1950),  particularly  where
doing so has no basis in the statutory text. 

III 
Straining  to  inject  ambiguity  into  the  statute,  the  Gov-
ernment  and  the  dissent  advance  several  overlapping 
arguments.  None is persuasive. 

A 
First, the Government posits that §1229(a) “is not worded
in  the  form  of  a  definition”  and  thus  cannot  circum-
scribe what type of notice counts as a “notice to appear” for
purposes  of  the  stop-time  rule.  Brief  for  Respondent  32.
Section 1229(a), however, does speak in definitional terms, 
at  least  with  respect  to  the  “time  and  place  at  which  the 
proceedings  will  be  held”:  It  specifically  provides  that  the 
notice  described  under  paragraph  (1)  is  “referred  to  as  a 
‘notice  to  appear,’ ”  which  in  context  is  quintessential 
definitional  language.8    It  then  defines  that  term  as  a 

—————— 

that a notice to appear “can also be understood to serve primarily as a
charging document.”  Post, at 14–15.  But neither the Government nor 
the  dissent  offers  any  convincing  basis,  much  less  one  rooted  in  the
statutory  text,  for  treating  time-and-place  information  as  any  less
crucial  than  charging  information  for  purposes  of  triggering  the  stop-
time  rule.    Furthermore,  there  is  no  reason  why  a  notice  to  appear 
should  have  only  one  essential  function.    Even  if  a  notice  to  appear 
functions as a “charging document,” that is not mutually exclusive with 
the  conclusion  that  a  notice  to  appear  serves  another  equally  integral 
function:  telling  a  noncitizen  when  and  where  to  appear.    At  bottom, 
the  Government’s  self-serving  position  that  a  notice  to  appear  must
specify  charging  information,  but  not  the  time-and-place  information, 
reveals the arbitrariness inherent in its atextual approach to the stop-
time rule. 

8 Congress has employed similar definitional language in other statu-
tory  schemes.    See,  e.g.,  21  U. S. C.  §356(b)(1)  (creating  new  class  of
“fast track product[s]” by setting out drug requirements and providing: 
“In  this  section,  such  a  drug  is  referred  to  as  a  ‘fast  track  product’ ”);