Opinion of the Court
constitutional doubts under Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U. S. 678 (2001), which held that detention violates due process absent “adequate procedural protections” or “special justification[s]” sufficient to outweigh one’s “ ‘constitutionally protected interest in avoiding physical restraint,’ ” id., at 690 (quoting Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U. S. 346, 356 (1997)). Thus, respondents urge, we should adopt a reading of §1226(c)–their reading–that avoids this result.
The trouble with this argument is that constitutional avoidance “ ‘comes into play only when, after the application of ordinary textual analysis, the statute is found to be susceptible of more than one construction.’ ” Jennings, 583 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 12). The canon “has no application” absent “ambiguity.” Warger v. Shauers, 574 U. S. 40, 50 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). See also Zadvydas, 533 U. S., at 696 (“Despite this constitutional problem, if Congress has made its intent in the statute clear, we must give effect to that intent” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Here the text of §1226 cuts clearly against respondents’ position, see Part III, supra, making constitutional avoidance irrelevant.
We emphasize that respondents’ arguments here have all been statutory. Even their constitutional concerns are offered as just another pillar in an argument for their preferred reading of the language of §1226(c)–an idle pillar here because the statute is clear. While respondents might have raised a head-on constitutional challenge to §1226(c), they did not. Our decision today on the meaning of that statutory provision does not foreclose as-applied challenges–that is, constitutional challenges to applications of the statute as we have now read it. *** The judgments of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit are reversed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings.
