Sotomayor, J., dissenting
After all, deportation is not only a kind of “penalty,” but a “drastic measure” often “the equivalent of banishment [or] exile.” Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U. S. 6, 10 (1948). Nowhere is that truer than here. Aggravated felonies under the INA are “a category of crimes singled out for the harshest deportation consequences.” Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder, 560 U. S. 563, 566 (2010). If a non-U. S. citizen is convicted of an aggravated felony, even if she has a green card and has lived in this country for years, she is subject to removal and is also ineligible for readmission and many forms of immigration relief. See 8 U. S. C. §§1158(b)(2), 1182(a)(9)(A), 1182(h), 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii), 1229b(a)(3), 1229c(a)(1). “Accordingly, removal is a virtually certainty for [a non-U. S. citizen] found to have an aggravated felony conviction, no matter how long he has previously resided here.” Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2018) (slip op., at 1–2). Moreover, a person convicted of an “aggravated felony” faces heighted criminal sanctions for disobeying orders of removal, §1253(a)(1), or reentering the United States without permission, §1326(b)(2). For example, the penalty for illegal reentry skyrockets from 2 years to 20. See §§1326(a), (b)(2).
This Court has been clear that, in the face of such stakes, it “will not assume that Congress meant to trench on [a non-U. S. citizen’s] freedom beyond that which is required by the narrowest of several possible meanings of the words used.” Fong Haw Tan, 333 U. S., at 10. While it may be true that certain broader readings of “obstruction of justice” are “at least plausible,” ante, at 3 (Jackson, J., concurring), that is not good enough because it is, at the very minimum, at least equally plausible that “obstruction of justice” requires a pending investigation or proceeding. The Court should have “err[ed] on the side of underinclusiveness” when interpreting §1101(a)(43). Moncrieffe, 569 U. S., at 205.
