Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-179_o75q.pdf
Page Number: 9.0

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

contributions  to  the  “marketplace  of  ideas.”    Virginia  v. 
Hicks,  539  U. S.  113,  119  (2003).    To  guard  against  those 
harms, the overbreadth doctrine allows a litigant (even an 
undeserving one) to vindicate the rights of the silenced, as 
well  as  society’s  broader  interest  in  hearing  them  speak.  
Williams, 553 U. S., at 292.  If the challenger demonstrates 
that  the  statute  “prohibits  a  substantial  amount  of  pro-
tected  speech”  relative  to  its  “plainly  legitimate  sweep,” 
then society’s interest in free expression outweighs its in-
terest in the statute’s lawful applications, and a court will 
hold the law facially invalid.  Ibid.; see Hicks, 539 U. S., at 
118–119. 
  Because  it  destroys  some  good  along  with  the  bad, 
“[i]nvalidation for overbreadth is ‘ “strong medicine” ’ that is 
not to be ‘casually employed.’ ”  Williams, 553 U. S., at 293.  
To justify facial invalidation, a law’s unconstitutional appli-
cations  must  be  realistic,  not  fanciful,  and  their  number 
must be substantially disproportionate to the statute’s law-
ful sweep.  New York State Club Assn., Inc. v. City of New 
York, 487 U. S. 1, 14 (1988); Members of City Council of Los 
Angeles  v.  Taxpayers  for  Vincent,  466  U. S.  789,  800–801 
(1984).  In the absence of a lopsided ratio, courts must han-
dle unconstitutional applications as they usually do—case-
by-case. 

III 
A 
  To  judge  whether  a  statute  is  overbroad,  we  must  first 
determine  what  it  covers.    Recall  that  §1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) 
makes  it  unlawful  to  “encourag[e]  or  induc[e]  an  alien  to 
come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or 
in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, 
or residence is or will be in violation of law.”1  The issue is 
—————— 

1 Although the statutory terms are not coextensive, we use “alien” and 
“noncitizen” as rough equivalents here.  See 8 U. S. C. §1101(a)(3); Bar-
ton v. Barr, 590 U. S. ___, ___, n. 2 (2020) (slip op., at 3, n. 2).