Jackson, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 22–179
UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. HELAMAN HANSEN
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
[June 23, 2023]
Justice Jackson, with whom Justice Sotomayor joins, dissenting.
At bottom, this case is about how to interpret a statute that prohibits “encourag[ing] or induc[ing]” a noncitizen “to come to, enter, or reside in the United States” unlawfully. 8 U. S. C. §1324(a)(1)(A)(iv). The Court reads that broad language as a narrow prohibition on the intentional solicitation or facilitation of a specific act of unlawful immigration—and it thereby avoids having to invalidate this statute under our well-established First Amendment overbreadth doctrine. But the majority departs from ordinary principles of statutory interpretation to reach that result. Specifically, it rewrites the provision’s text to include elements that Congress once adopted but later removed as part of its incremental expansion of this particular criminal law over the last century.
It is neither our job nor our prerogative to retrofit federal statutes in a manner patently inconsistent with Congress’s choices. Moreover, by acquiescing to the Government’s newly minted pitch to narrow this statute in order to save it,[1] the majority undermines the goal of the overbreadth doctrine, which aims to keep overly broad statutes off the
- ↑ Previously, even the Government rejected the majority’s view of the statute’s scope at trial, when it was seeking to convict the defendant. See Part III, infra.
