Breyer, J., dissenting
some temporal delay. A child who is told to “mow the lawn, please, when you get home from school” likely does not have to mow the lawn the second she comes into the house. She can do a few other things first.
Mindful of “the greater immigration-related expertise of the Executive Branch” and “the serious administrative needs and concerns inherent in the necessarily extensive [Government] efforts to enforce this complex statute,” I would interpret the word “when” in the same manner as we interpreted other parts of this statute in Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U. S. 678, 700 (2001). The words “when the alien is released” require the Secretary to detain aliens under subsection (c) within a reasonable time after their release from criminal custody–presumptively no more than six months. If the Secretary does not do so, she must grant a bail hearing. This presumptive 6-month limit is consistent with how long the Government can detain certain aliens while they are awaiting removal from the country. Id., at 682, 701 (interpreting a different provision, §1231(a)(6)). To insist upon similar treatment in this context would give the Government sufficient time to detain aliens following their release from local, state, or federal criminal custody. It would also ensure that the Government does not fall outside the 1-year maximum dictated by the transition statute. See supra, at 10, 14.
IV
To reiterate: The question before us is not “narrow.” Ante, at 2 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring). See supra, at 4. That is because we cannot interpret the words of this specific statute without also considering basic promises that America’s legal system has long made to all persons. In deciphering the intent of the Congress that wrote this statute, we must decide–in the face of what is, at worst, linguistic ambiguity–whether Congress intended that persons who have long since paid their debt to society
