Immigration – Stop-time Rule

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United States Supreme Court

Case Name: Agusto Niz-Chavez v. Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General

Case No.: 19-863

Focus: Immigration – Stop-time Rule

Anyone who has applied for a passport, filed for Social Security benefits, or sought a license understands the government’s affinity for forms. Make a mistake or skip a page? Go back and try again, sometimes with a penalty for the trouble. But it turns out the federal government finds some of its forms frustrating too. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), 110 Stat. 3009–546, requires the government to serve “a notice to appear” on individuals it wishes to remove from this country. At first blush, a notice to appear might seem to be just that—a single document containing all the information an individual needs to know about his removal hearing. But, the government says, supplying so much information in a single form is too taxing. It needs more flexibility, allowing its officials to provide information in separate mailings (as many as they wish) over time (as long as they find convenient). The question for us is whether the law Congress adopted tolerates the government’s preferred practice. The modest threshold Congress provided to invoke the stop-time rule is clear from the text and must be complied with here. Pp. 13–16.

Reversed

Dissenting: KAVANAUGH, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and ALITO, J., joined.

Concurring:

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Derek A Hawkins is Associate Corporate Counsel, IP at Amazon.