Opinion of the Court
in that sense “describe[s]”) the noun “alien” are the adjectival clauses that appear in subparagraphs (A)–(D).
Respondents and the dissent contend that this grammatical point is not the end of the matter–that an adverb can “describe” a person even though it cannot modify the noun used to denote that person. See post, at 5–6 (opinion of Breyer, J.). But our interpretation is not dependent on a rule of grammar. The preliminary point about grammar merely complements what is critical, and indeed conclusive in these cases: the particular meaning of the term “described” as it appears in §1226(c)(2). As we noted in Luna Torres v. Lynch, 578 U. S. ___, ___ (2016) (slip op., at 6), the term “ ‘describe’ takes on different meanings in different contexts.” A leading definition of the term is “to communicate verbally… an account of salient identifying features,” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 610 (1976), and that is clearly the meaning of the term used in the phrase “an alien described in paragraph (1).” (Emphasis added.) This is clear from the fact that the indisputable job of the “descri[ption] in paragraph (1)” is to “identif[y]” for the Secretary–to list the “salient… features” by which she can pick out–which aliens she must arrest immediately “when [they are] released.”
And here is the crucial point: The “when… released” clause could not possibly describe aliens in that sense; it plays no role in identifying for the Secretary which aliens she must immediately arrest. If it did, the directive in §1226(c)(1) would be nonsense. It would be ridiculous to read paragraph (1) as saying: “The Secretary must arrest, upon their release from jail, a particular subset of criminal aliens. Which ones? Only those who are arrested upon their release from jail.” Since it is the Secretary’s action that determines who is arrested upon release, “being arrested upon release” cannot be one of her criteria in figuring out whom to arrest. So it cannot “describe”–it cannot give the Secretary an “identifying featur[e]” of–the rele-
