LUNA TORRES v. LYNCH, ATTORNEY GENERAL
No. 14-1096
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Argued November 3, 2015—Decided May 19, 2016
578 U. S. ____ (2016)
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
(Slip Opinion)
OCTOBER TERM, 2015
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337 (1906).
Any alien convicted of an “aggravated felony” after entering the United States is deportable, ineligible for several forms of discretionary relief, and subject to expedited removal.
Petitioner Jorge Luna Torres (Luna), a lawful permanent resident, pleaded guilty in a New York court to attempted third-degree arson. When immigration officials discovered his conviction, they initiated removal proceedings. The Immigration Judge determined that Luna‘s arson conviction was for an “aggravated felony” and held that Luna was therefore ineligible for discretionary relief. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed. It found the federal and New York arson offenses to be identical except for the former‘s requirement that the crime have a connection to interstate or foreign commerce. Because the federal statute‘s commerce element serves only a jurisdictional function, the Board held, New York‘s arson offense is “described in” the federal statute,
Held: A state offense counts as a
Because Congress lacks general constitutional authority to punish crimes, most federal offenses include a jurisdictional element to tie the substantive crime to one of Congress‘s enumerated powers. State legislatures are not similarly constrained, and so state crimes do not need such a jurisdictional hook. That discrepancy creates the issue here—whether a state offense
(a) Section
(b) The settled practice of distinguishing between substantive and jurisdictional elements in federal criminal statutes also supports reading
764 F. 3d 152, affirmed.
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 14–1096
JORGE LUNA TORRES, PETITIONER v. LORETTA E. LYNCH, ATTORNEY GENERAL
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
[May 19, 2016]
JUSTICE KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA or Act) imposes certain adverse immigration consequences on an alien convicted of an “aggravated felony.” The INA defines that term by listing various crimes, most of which are identified as offenses “described in” specifiеd provisions of the federal criminal code. Immediately following that list, the Act provides that the referenced offenses are aggravated felonies irrespective of whether they are “in violation of Federal[,] State[,]” or foreign law.
I
The INA makes any alien convicted of an “aggravated felony” after entering the United States deportable. See
The Act defines the term “aggravated felony” by way of a long list of offenses, now codified at
Petitioner Jorge Luna Torres, who goes by the name George Luna, immigrated to the United States as a child and has lived here ever since as a lawful permanent resident. In 1999, he pleaded guilty to attempted arson in the third degree, in violation of New York law; he was sen-tenced to one day in prison and five years of probation. Seven years later, immigration officials discovered his conviction and initiated proceedings to remove him from the country. During those proceedings, Luna applied for cancellation of removal. But the Immigration Judge found him ineligible for that discretionary relief because
The Board of Immigration Appeals (Board) affirmed, based on a comparison of the federal and New York arson statutes. See id., at 15a–17a. The INA, as just noted, provides that “an offense described in”
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied Luna‘s petition for review of the Board‘s ruling. See Torres v. Holder, 764 F. 3d 152 (2d Cir. 2014). The court‘s decision added to a Circuit split over whether a state offense is an aggravated felony when it has all the elements of a listed federal crime except one requiring a connection to interstate commerce.1 We granted certiorari. 576 U. S. ____ (2015).
II
The issue in this case arises because of the distinctive role interstate commerce elements play in federal criminal law. In our federal system, “Congress cannot punish felonies generally,” Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 428 (1821); it may enact only those criminal laws that are connected to one of its constitutionally enumerated powers, such as the authority to regulate interstate commerce. As a result, most federal offenses include, in addition to substantive elements, a jurisdictional one, like the interstate commerce requirement of
For obvious reasons, state criminal laws do not include the jurisdictional elements common in federal statutes.2 State legislatures, exercising their plenary police powers, are not limited to Congress‘s enumerated powers; and so States have no reason to tie their substantive offenses to those grants of authority. See, e.g., United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 567 (1995). In particular, state crimes do not contain interstate commerce elements because a State does not need such a jurisdictional hook. Accordingly, even state offenses whose substantive elements match up exactly with a federal law‘s will part ways with respect to interstate commerce. That slight discrepancy creates the issue here: If a state offense lacks an interstate commerce element but otherwise mirrors one of the federal statutes listed in
Both parties begin with the statutory text most directly at issue, disputing when a state offense (here, arson) is “described in” an enumerated federal statute (here,
ments. Brief for Petitioner 15–16.3 The Government, brandishing dictionaries of its own, contends that the statutory phrase has a looser meaning—that “describing entails ... not precise replication,” but “convey[ance of] an idea or impression” or of a thing‘s “central features.” Brief for Respondent 17.4 On that view, “described in,” as opposed to the more precise “defined in” sometimes found in statutes, denotes that the state offense need only incorporate the federal law‘s core, substantive elements.
But neither of those claims about the bare term “described in” can resolve this case. Like many words, “describe” takes on different meanings in different contexts. Consider two ways in which this Court has used the word. In one case, “describe” conveyed exactness: A contractual provision, we wrote, “describes the subject [matter] with great particularity[,] ... giv[ing] the precise number of pounds [of tobacco], the tax for which each pound
to qualify as an aggravated felony. In considering that issue, we must, as usual, “interpret the relevant words not in a vacuum, but with reference to the statutory context.” Abramski v. United States, 573 U. S. ____, ____ (2014) (slip op., at 9).5
Here, two contextual considerations decide the matter. The first is
A
Section
above, provides: “The term [aggravated felony] applies to an offense described in this paragraph whether in violation of Federal or State law and applies to such an offense in violation of the law of a foreign country for which the term of imprisonment was completed within the previous 15 years.” See supra, at 2. That sentence (except for the time limit on foreign convictions) declares the sоurce of criminal law irrelevant: The listed offenses count as aggravated felonies regardless of whether they are made illegal by the Federal Government, a State, or a foreign country. That is true of the crimes identified by reference to federal statutes (as here, an offense described in
Luna‘s jot-for-jot view of “described in” would substantially undercut that function by excluding from the Act‘s coverage all state and foreign versions of any enumerated federal offense that (like
federal crimes, and not their state and foreign counterparts, would provide a basis for an alien‘s removal—because, as explained earlier, only Congress must ever show a link to interstate commerce. See supra, at 4–5. No state or foreign legislature needs to incorporate a commerce element to establish its jurisdiction, and so none ever does. Accordingly, state and foreign crimes will never precisely replicate a federal statute containing a commerce element. And that means, contrary to
In an attempt to make some sense of his reading, Luna posits that Congress might have believed that crimes having an interstate connection are generally more serious than those lacking one—for example, that interstate child pornography is “worse” than the intrastate variety. Brief for Petitioner 35. But to begin with, that theory cannot explain the set of crazy-quilt results just described: Not even Luna maintains that Congress thought local acts of selling a child, receiving explosives, or demanding a ran-
som are categorically
Luna (and the dissent, see post, at 6) must therefore fall back on a different defense: that his approach would exclude from the universe of aggravated felonies fewer serious state and foreign offenses than one might think. To make that argument, Luna relies primarily on a part of the Act specifying that the term “aggravated felony” shall include “a crime of violence (as defined in [
Luna‘s argument does not reassure us. We agree that state counterparts of some enumerated federal offenses would qualify as aggravated felonies through the “crime of violence” provision. But not nearly all such offenses, and not even the worst ones. Consider again some of the listed offenses described earlier. See supra, at 10. The “crime of violence” provision would not pick up demanding a ransom for kidnapping. See
B
Just as important, a settled practice of distinguishing between substantive and jurisdictional elements of federal criminal laws supports reading
ment. As already explained, the substantive elements of a federal statute describe the evil Congress seeks to prevent; the jurisdictional element connects the law to one of Congress‘s enumerated powers, thus establishing legislative authority. See supra, at 4–5; ALI, Model Penal Code §1.13(10) (1962). Both kinds of elements must be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt; and because that is so, both may play a real role in a criminal case. But still, they are not created equal for every purpose. To the contrary, courts have often recognized—including when comparing federal and state offenses—that Congress uses substantive and jurisdictional elements for different reasons and does not expect them to receive identical treatment.
Consider the law respecting mens rea. In general, courts interpret criminal statutes to require that a defendant possess a mens rea, or guilty mind, as to every element of an offense. See Elonis v. United States, 575 U. S. ____, ____ (2015) (slip op., at 10). That is so even when the “statute by its terms does not contain” any demand
Except when it comes to jurisdictional elements. There, this Court has stated, “the existence of the fact that confers federal jurisdiction need not be one in the mind of the actor at the time he perpetrates the act made criminal by the federal statute.” United States v. Feola, 420 U. S. 671, 677, n. 9 (1975); see United States v. Yermian, 468 U. S. 63, 68 (1984) (“Jurisdictional language need not contain the same culpability requirement as other elements of the offense“); Model Penal Code §2.02. So when Congress has said nothing about the mental state pertaining to a jurisdictional element, the default rule flips: Courts assume that Congress wanted such an element to stand outside the otherwise applicable mens rea requirement. In line with that practice, courts have routinely held that a criminal defendant need not know of a federal crime‘s interstate commerce connection to be found guilty. See, e.g., United States v. Jinian, 725 F. 3d 954, 964–966 (CA9 2013); United States v. Lindemann, 85 F. 3d 1232, 1241 (CA7 1996); United States v. Blackmon, 839 F. 2d 900, 907 (CA2 1988). Those courts have recognized, as we do here, that Congress viewed the commerce element as distinct from, and subject to a different rule than, the elements describing the substantive offense.
Still more strikingly, courts have distinguished between the two kinds of elements in contexts, similar to this one, in which the judicial task is to compare federal and state offenses. The Assimilative Crimes Act (ACA),
And lower courts have uniformly adopted the same approach when comparing federal and state crimes in order to apply the federal three-strikes statute. That law imposes mandatory life imprisonment on a person convicted on three separate occasions of a “serious violent felony.”
Luna objects to drawing that line on the ground that it is too hard to tell the difference between the two. See Brief for Petitioner 26–28 (discussing, in particular, statutes criminalizing the destruction of federal property and sending threats via the Postal Service). But that contention collides with the judicial experience just described. Courts regularly separate substantive from jurisdictional elements in applying federal criminal statutes’ mens rea requirements; so too in implementing other laws that require a comparison of federal and state offenses. And from all we can see, courts perform that task with no real trouble: Luna has not pointed to any divisions between or within Circuits arising from the practice. We do not deny that some tough questions may lurk on the margins—where an element that makes evident Congress‘s regulatory power also might play a role in defining the behavior Congress thought harmful. But a standard interstate dissent‘s own creation; the actual appellate decisions apply to all jurisdictional elements, not just territorial ones. Next, the dissent goes wrong in claiming that the ACA is not pertinent because this Court adopted a different method for matching substantive elements under that law than under the INA. See post, at 12. For even as the Court made that choice, it unanimously agreed that, however substantive elements should be compared, jurisdictional elements should be disregarded. See Lewis v. United States, 523 U. S. 155, 165 (1998); id., at 182 (KENNEDY, J., dissenting). And finally, the dissent does nothing to undermine our point on mens rea by noting that Congress very occasionally dispenses with that requirement for substantive elements. See post, at 11. As just shown, the default rule respecting mental states flips as between jurisdictional and substantive elements, see supra, at 15–16—reflecting the view (also at play in the three-strikes and ACA contexts) that Congress generally means to treat the twо differently. That leaves the dissent with nothing except its observation that when applying the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt and jury-trial requirements, the Court does not distinguish between jurisdictional and substantive elements. See post, at 10. But the dissent forgets that those commands are constitutional in nature; a principle of statutory interpretation distinguishing between the two kinds of elements, as best reflecting Congress‘s intent, could not bear on those mandates. commerce element, of the kind appearing in a great many federal laws, is almost always a simple jurisdictional hook—and courts may as easily acknowledge
C
Luna makes a final argument opposing our reading of
But as an initial matter, Congress may have had good reason to think that a statutory reference would capture more accurately than a generic label the range of state convictions warranting automatic deportation. The clause of
Still more, Congress‘s omission of statutory language specifically directing courts to ignore those elements cannot tip the scales in Luna‘s favor. We have little doubt that “Congress could have drafted [
III
That reading of
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS and JUSTICE BREYER join, dissenting.
The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) metes out severe immigration consequences to a noncitizen convicted of any of a number of “aggravated felon[ies].”
In this case, petitioner, who goes by George Luna, was convicted of third-degree arson under
Not for the majority. It dubs the fifth element “jurisdictional,” then relies on contextual clues to read it out of the statute altogether. As a result of the majority‘s sleuthing, Luna—a long-time legal permanent resident—is foreclosed from even appealing to the sound discretion of the Attorney General to obtain relief from removal. Because precedent and the text and structure of the INA require the opposite result, I respectfully dissent.
I
A
Noncitizens convicted of crimes face various consequences under the INA. Among the harshest of those consequences fall on noncitizens convicted of 1 of the approximately 80 “aggravated felonies.” A crime that falls into one of the listed provisions
An aggravated felony conviction has two primary repercussions for noncitizens: It renders them deportable,
The dozens of aggravated felonies in the INA are specified in two main ways. First, some are specified by reference to a generic crime. It is an aggravated felony, for instance, to commit “murder, rape, or sexual abuse of a minor.”
Second, it lists crimes that are wholly “described in” the federal criminal code. See, e.g.,
B
In 2006, Luna was found removable from the United States. He attempted to apply for cancellation of removal, a form of relief available to long-time legal permanent residents at the discretion of the Attorney General.
But the Immigration Judge found—and the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Second Circuit confirmed—that Luna was ineligible for cancellation of removal. Luna‘s New York State arson conviction, the judge held, qualified as an aggravated felony under the provision for “an offense described in”
II
But the offense of which Luna was convicted is not “described in”
A
This is not the first time the Court has been tasked with determining whether a state offense constitutes an “aggravated felony” under the INA. Until today, the Court has always required the state offense to match every element of the listed “aggravated felony.” Kawashima v. Holder, 565 U. S. 478, 483 (2012) (slip op., at 4);
Our ordinary methodology thus confirms that the federal arson statute does not describe the New York arson statute under which Luna was convicted. As I have outlined above, see supra, at 1, the federal statute is more limited: It applies only to fires that invоlve “interstate or foreign commerce.” The state statute contains no such limitation. Thus, under the approach we have used in every case to date, the omission of the interstate commerce element means that Luna‘s state arson conviction was not an aggravated felony under the INA.
B
The plain language of the statute supports this straightforward approach. The word “describe” means to “express,” “portray,” or “represent.” See Black‘s Law Dictionary 445 (6th ed. 1990); Webster‘s Third New International Dictionary 610 (1986). A description may be “detailed” or it may be general, setting forth only the “recognizable features, or characteristic marks,” of the thing described while leaving the rest to the imagination. 4 Oxford English Dictionary 512 (2d ed. 1989). For example, a Craigslist ad describing an apartment with “in-unit laundry, a dishwasher, rooftop access, central A/C, and a walk-in closet” may leave much to the imagination. After all, the description does not mention the apartment‘s square footage, windows, or floor number. But though the ad omits features, we would still call it a “description” because it accurately conveys the “recognizable features” of the apartment.
However, even the most general description cannot refer to features that the thing being described does not have. The ad is only an accurate description if the apartment “described in” it has at least the five features listed. If the apartment only has four of the five listed features—there is no rooftop access, say, or the walk-in closet is not so much walk-in as shimmy-in—then the Craigslist ad no longer “describes” the apartment. Rather, it misdescribes it.
So, too, with the statutes in this case. The federal description can be general as long as it is still accurate—that is, as long as the state law has at least all of the elements in the federal law. But there is no meaning of “describe” that allows the Court to say
C
The structure of the INA confirms that conclusion and makes clear that we need not contort the ordinary, accepted meaning of the phrase “described in.” The INA has many overlapping provisions that assign carefully calibrated consequences to various types of criminal convictions. The Court thus need not interpret any provision—and certainly none of the aggravated felony provisions, among the harshest in the INA—as broadly as possible because the INA as a whole ensures that serious criminal conduct is adequately captured.
Second, other sections of the INA provide intertwining coverage for serious crimes. Some examples of provisions that encompass many offenses include those for the commission of a “crime involving moral turpitude,” a firearms offense, or a controlled substance offense, all of which will render a noncitizen removable, even if he or she has not committed an aggravated felony. See
And finally, in Luna‘s case or anyone else‘s, the Attorney General can exercise her discretion to deny relief to a serious criminal whether or not that criminal has been convicted of an aggravated felony. See Carachuri-Rosendo, 560 U. S., at 581 (doubting that a narrow reading of
To be sure, on Luna‘s reading, some serious conduct may not be captured by the INA. But not nearly so much as the
Looking for consistency in the aggravated felony provisions of the INA is often a fool‘s errand. See Kawashima, 565 U. S., at 2 (slip op., at 9, n. 2) (GINSBURG, J., dissenting) (noting the absurdity of making a tax misdemeanor, but not driving while drunk and causing serious bodily injury, an aggravated felony). But the structure of the INA gives the Court no reason to read the aggravated felony provisions as broadly as possible.3 That is why this Court has repeatedly cautioned against interpreting the aggravated felony section to sweep in offenses that—like many state arson convictions—may be neither aggravated nor felonies. See Carachuri-Rosendo, 560 U. S., at 574; Brief for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al. as Amici Curiae 28–29 (collecting state misdemeanor arson statutes).
III
The majority denies Luna the opportunity to present his case to the Attorney General based on two “contextual considerations,” ante, at 7, and an intuition about how the statute ought to work. None are sufficiently persuasive to overcome the most natural reading of the aggravated felony statute.
A
The majority first perceives a conflict between Luna‘s reading of the INA and what it calls the “penultimate sentence” of the aggravated felony statute. The “penultimate sentence” provides that an offense can be an aggravated felony “whether in violation of Federal or State law” or “in violation of the law of a foreign country.”
It is true that, on Luna‘s reading, some of the aggravated felonies listed in the INA (including “an offense described in”
And the majority must admit that its interpretation will also leave entries in the aggravated-felony section with no state or foreign analogs. For instance, it seems unlikely that the proviso contemplates state analogs for the aggravated felony provisions regarding treason, levying war against the United States, or disclosing national defense information. See
In other words, under Luna‘s reading, the “penultimate sentence” applies to most, but not all, of the entries of the aggravated felony statute; under the majority‘s reading, the “penultimate sentence” also applies to most, but not all, of the entries of the aggravated felony statute. The majority‘s first “contextual сonsideration” thus supplies no reason to prefer one reading over the other.
B
Just as important, the majority suggests, is a “settled practice of distinguishing between substantive . . . elements”—those that define “the evil Congress seeks to prevent”—and “jurisdictional element[s],” which merely “establis[h] legislative authority.” Ante, at 15. The majority admits that the Court does not distinguish between substantive and jurisdictional elements for many purposes, such as proof beyond a reasonable doubt and the right to a jury trial. Ibid.; see Ring v. Arizona, 536 U. S. 584, 606 (2002). But it nonetheless insists on a standard distinction so entrenched that Congress must have intended it to apply even absent any particular indication in the INA.
None of the three examples that the majority proffers is evidence of such a strong norm. First, the majority invokes our rules for interpreting criminal statutes. Ante, at 15–16. Whereas our general assumption is that a defendant must know each fact making his conduct illegal, courts generally hold that a criminal defendant need not know the facts that satisfy the jurisdictional element of a statute.
But jurisdictional elements are not the only elements a defendant need not know. Under the “default rule,” ante, at 18, n. 12, for interpreting so-called “public welfare” offenses, courts have held that a defendant need not know that the substance he possesses is a narcotic, that the device he possesses is unregistered, or that he reentered the United States after previously being deported. See Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600, 606–609, 611 (1994) (citing United States v. Balint, 258 U. S. 250 (1922), and United States v. Freed, 401 U. S. 601 (1971)); United States v. Burwell, 690 F. 3d 500, 508–509 (CADC 2012); United States v. Giambro, 544 F. 3d 26, 29 (CA1 2008); United States v. Martinez-Morel, 118 F. 3d 710, 715–717 (CA10 1997). But surely the majority would not suggest that if we agree with those holdings regarding mens rea, we must then ignore the “controlled substance” element of the drug trafficking aggravated felony, the “unregistered” element of the unregistered firearms aggravated
The majority next points to two of the many statutes that, like the INA, require comparing the elements of federal and state offenses. But in each case, it is the statute‘s language and context, not some “settled practice,” ante, at 15, that command the omission of the jurisdictional element.
The majority‘s first example, ante, at 16–17, is the Assimilative Crimes Act,
The majority‘s analogy to the federal three strikes statute,
C
Finally, the majority suggests that it would be “peculiarly perverse,” ante, at 10, to adopt Luna‘s plain-text reading of the statute because it would draw a distinction among crimes based on a jurisdictional element that the majority assumes is wholly divorced from “the evil Congress seeks to prevent,” ante, at 15. The jurisdictional element of a federal statute, the majority asserts, is as trivial as the perfunctory warning on a new electronic device: “[A] person would say that she had followed the instructions for setting up an iPhone that are ‘described in’ the user‘s manual, even if she in fact ignored the one” instructing that she “begin by ‘read[ing] important safety information.’” Ante, at 7, n. 5; see also ibid. (comparing jurisdictional element to a “detour” in a 3-week itinerary).
For instance, the majority assumes that it would not be “plausible,” ante, at 12, for Congress to have thought that interstate crimes are worse than wholly intrastate crimes. Perhaps. But when faced with an offense that, like arson, admits of a range of conduct, from the minor to the serious, Congress could plausibly have concluded that arsons prosecuted as federal crimes are more uniformly serious than arsons prosecuted as state crimes and counted only the former as aggravated felonies. See, e.g., Klein et al., Why Federal Prosecutors Charge: A Comparison of Federal and New York State Arson and Robbery Filings, 2006–2010, 51 Houston L. Rev. 1381, 1406, 1416-1419 (2014) (finding that arsons prosecuted federally involve more property damage and more injury than arsons prosecuted under state law).
That is because, far from being token, “conventional jurisdictional elements” serve to narrow the kinds of crimes that can be prosecuted, not just to specify the sovereign that can do the prosecuting. Take the federal statute at issue in this case. Section 844(i) requires that the property destroyed be “used in interstate . . . commerce.” The Court has held that “standard, jurisdictional” element, ante, at 21, demands the property‘s “active employment for commercial purposes, and not merely a passive, passing, or past connection to commerce.” Jones v. United States, 529 U. S. 848, 855 (2000). As a result, the Court held that a defendant who threw a Molotov cocktail through the window of an owner-occupied residential house could not be guilty under
The difference between an offense under
* * *
On the majority‘s reading, long-time legal permanent residents with convictions for minor state offenses are foreclosed from even appealing to the mercy of the Attorney General. Against our standard method for comparing statutеs and the text and structure of the INA, the majority stacks a supposed superfluity, a not-so-well-settled practice, and its conviction that jurisdictional elements are mere technicalities. But an element is an element, and I would not so lightly strip a federal statute of one. I respectfully dissent.
Notes
And even under the majority‘s reading, a state-law conviction will only qualify as an aggravated felony if the “right state charge is filed.” Ante, at 14, n. 10. For example, even on the majority‘s reading, a state-court defendant who sells a child for purposes of child pornography is unlikely to be convicted of “an offense described in [18 U. S. C.] §2251A,” see
Similarly, if the aggravated felony provision were the only way to ensure that the Attorney General exercised her discretion wisely, we would expect that discretion to be constrained as to all noncitizens who potentially pose a threat to the United States. In fact, the Attorney General is not prevented from granting cancellation of removal—the discretionary relief at issue in this case—to, for instance, a noncitizen who has not been convicted of a crime but is removable for having “received military-type training” from a terrorist organization. See
In short, it cannot be the case that the aggravated felony provisions were intended to be the statute‘s sole mechanism for identifying the most dangerous noncitizens.