Opinion of the Court
severed any connection the prohibition had to solicitation and facilitation. Brief for Respondent 25–26. In other words, Hansen claims, the 1952 and 1986 revisions show that Congress opted to make “protected speech, not conduct, a crime.” Id., at 27.
We do not agree that the mere removal of the words “assist” and “solicit” turned an ordinary solicitation and facilitation offense into a novel and boundless restriction on speech. Hansen’s argument would require us to assume that Congress took a circuitous route to convey a sweeping—and constitutionally dubious—message. The better understanding is that Congress simply “streamlined” the pre-1952 statutory language—which, as any nonlawyer who has picked up the U. S. Code can tell you, is a commendable effort. 40 F. 4th, at 1066 (opinion of Bumatay, J.). In fact, the streamlined formulation mirrors this Court’s own description of the 1917 Act, which is further evidence that Congress was engaged in a cleanup project, not a renovation. See United States v. Lem Hoy, 330 U. S. 724, 727 (1947) (explaining that the 1917 Act barred “contract laborers, defined as persons induced or encouraged to come to this country by offers or promises of employment” (emphasis added)); id., at 731 (describing the 1917 Act as a “prohibition against employers inducing laborers to enter the country” (emphasis added)). And critically, the terms that Congress retained (“encourage” and “induce”) substantially overlap in meaning with the terms it omitted (“assist” and “solicit”). LaFave §13.2(a). Clause (iv) is best understood as a continuation of the past, not a sharp break from it.
C
Hansen’s primary counterargument is that clause (iv) is missing the necessary mens rea for solicitation and facilitation. Brief for Respondent 28–31. Both, as traditionally understood, require that the defendant specifically intend
