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Page Number: 22.0

18 

PEREIRA v. SESSIONS 

Opinion of the Court 

whether  Congress  intended  the  stop-time  rule  to  apply 
when the Government fails to provide written notice of the
time  and  place  of  removal  proceedings.  As  to  that  ques-
tion, the statute makes clear that Congress fully intended 
to attach substantive significance to the requirement that 
noncitizens be given notice of at least the time and place of 
their  removal  proceedings.  A  document  that  fails  to  in-
clude  such  information  is  not  a  “notice  to  appear  under
section  1229(a)”  and  thus  does  not  trigger  the  stop-time 
rule. 

D 

Unable  to  find  sure  footing  in  the  statutory  text,  the
Government  and  the  dissent  pivot  away  from  the  plain 
language and raise a number of practical concerns.  These 
practical  considerations  are  meritless  and  do  not  justify 
departing  from  the  statute’s  clear  text.    See  Burrage  v. 
United States, 571 U. S. 204, 218 (2014). 

The Government, for its part, argues that the “adminis-
trative realities of removal proceedings” render it difficult 
to  guarantee  each  noncitizen  a  specific  time,  date,  and 
place for his removal proceedings.  See Brief for Respond-
ent  48.  That  contention  rests  on  the  misguided  premise 
that the time-and-place information specified in the notice
to appear must be etched in stone.  That is incorrect.  As 
noted  above,  §1229(a)(2)  expressly  vests  the  Government 
with  power  to  change  the  time  or  place  of  a  noncitizen’s
removal proceedings so long as it provides “written notice
. . . specifying . . . the new time or place of the proceedings” 
and the consequences of failing to appear.  See §1229(a)(2);
Tr.  of  Oral  Arg.  16–19.    Nothing  in  our  decision  today 
inhibits  the  Government’s  ability  to  exercise  that  statu- 
tory authority after it has served a notice to appear specify-
ing the time and place of the removal proceedings. 

The  dissent  raises  a  similar  practical  concern,  which  is
similarly  misplaced.  The  dissent  worries  that  requiring