Niz-Chavez v. Barr (19-863)

argument 19-863

Niz-Chavez v. Barr

Supreme Court of the United States 1h 9m 8 speakers 7 chapters transcribed 5 days ago official recording ↗

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What does the statute’s text and the IRIRA amendments say about the definition of a “notice to appear”?

John G. Roberts 0:00

We will hear argument first this morning in case nineteen eight sixty three, Niz Chavez versus Bar.

0:06

Mr.

John G. Roberts 0:07

Zimmer?

Unknown 0:09

Thank you very much, Mr Chief Justice, and may it please the court. The statute's text and the changes Congress made in IRIRA unambiguously established that a notice to appear is a specific notice document. As a textual matter, the government simply cannot explain why Congress used the phrase a notice if what it really meant was simply notice in the abstract. Even more remarkably, though, the government all but concedes that accepting its interpretation means that Congress made significant changes to the statute in IRIRA for no reason at all. Before IRIRA, the statute authorized the very two step notice process the government defends here. It required an order to show cause, but allowed the government to provide the time and place of the hearing, quote, in the order to show cause or otherwise, end quote.

Unknown 0:55

By the time of IRIRA, Congress had good reasons to rethink that two step notice process. It burdened immigration courts, which were forced to resolve disputes about whether the government properly served the separate hearing notice, and, as this court noted in Pereira, it confused non citizens by forcing them to piece together information across multiple documents that could be served years apart. So in IRIRA, Congress created a new form of notice, a notice to appear. Congress largely copied the pre IRIRA notice provisions, but, crucially for this case, Congress cut the language authorizing the government to provide time and place information in a separate hearing notice and made that information a required part of a notice to appear.

Unknown 1:37

The government, however, refused for many years to comply with that change, and to avoid the consequences of that refusal, and now asks this court to read that change out of the statute entirely and deprive Congress's explicit rejection of the two step notice process of any meaning. This court, however, should give meaning to IRIRA's changes and should hold that a notice to appear, like in order to show cause, is a specific notice document that includes all of the information specified in the statute. That is the only way to make sense of the statute's text and structure, and it is the only way to read the statute that is consistent with IRIRA.

John G. Roberts 2:12

Mr Zimmer, uh would the stop time rule be triggered uh if the alien received the two documents in Two different envelopes at the same

Unknown 2:21

on the same day. I mean y yes, Your Honor, I'll uh certainly if it's not in the same document we d we don't think of trig sorry, I mean I guess no is the answer. That if it's in two different documents it does not trigger the stop time rule. And I I think that the the point of that uh is that there's no way to distinguish that situation from the situation uh like my clients where he received the notice two months later or the situation in Pereira where the government tried to serve it a year later uh but you know didn't even serve it correctly, or the situation in Camarillo where the government served the hearing notice two years later, I think what Congress was doing was trying to create a clear, firm rule that required that all of the information be provided together.

John G. Roberts 2:59

Well, I I think you're probably right that there's no way to distinguish it, but if it gets to uh to that uh uh absurd result that you've got two envelopes and you put 'em together, you get 'em on the same day and it's got all the information that you're entitled to, that that's nonetheless not uh a notice to appear.

Unknown 3:18

Well, Your Honor, I I I don't think it's absurd in the sense that the Congress the the the whole point if you if you that it what the Congress is trying to solve was that that that the the hypothetical assumes that everything works effectively. And and I think that that often, as the as the House report shows, these hearing notices weren't being served, uh weren't being properly served.

John G. Roberts 3:39

It's certainly if if that were what have done be done that they were in receipt at the same day, I doubt that that would have attract attracted Congress's interest.