Jackson, J., concurring
reason is that, when Congress inserted the phrase “offense relating to obstruction of justice” into §1101(a)(43)(S), it might well have been referencing a specific and previously designated category of offenses—the offenses that are grouped together in Chapter 73 of Title 18 of the U. S. Code, under the heading “Obstruction of Justice.” 62 Stat. 769, codified at 18 U. S. C. §1501 et seq. And not all of the offenses that are addressed in Chapter 73 contain a pending-proceeding requirement. *** What counts as “an offense relating to obstruction of justice” within the meaning of §1101(a)(43)(S) is nothing more, or less, than what Congress intended that phrase to mean when it enacted that statute. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) “does not expressly define” the phrase, so we apply the “normal tools of statutory interpretation” to “ ‘see what Congress probably meant’ ” by it. Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions, 581 U. S. 385, 391 (2017) (quoting Lopez v. Gonzales, 549 U. S. 47, 53 (2006)). In my view, our job in this regard is a limited one: We are called upon to understand and implement whatever Congress meant by that unadorned phrase.
When Congress selected the words “offense relating to obstruction of justice” and inserted them into the INA in 1996, 110 Stat. 1277–1278, Congress’s longest standing and most significant use of the phrase “obstruction of justice” in the Statutes at Large was its description of Chapter 73 of Title 18 as concerning “obstruction of justice.” 62 Stat. 769; see also 104 Stat. 4861 (describing Chapter 73 as “relating to obstruction of justice” when adding an offense to that Chapter in 1990). To me, this is a powerful contextual clue that Congress may have simply—and solely—been drawing on its own existing understanding of which particular offenses are properly characterized as such. Accord, Flores v. Attorney General, 856 F. 3d 280, 287–289 (CA3 2017) (refusing
