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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 13–1034
_________________
MOONES MELLOULI, PETITIONER
v. LORETTA
E.LYNCH, ATTORNEY GENERAL
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the eighth circuit
[June 1, 2015]
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the
Court.
This case requires us to decide how immigration
judges should apply a deportation (removal) provision, defined with
reference to federal drug laws, to an alien convicted of a state
drug-paraphernalia misdemeanor.
Lawful permanent resident Moones Mellouli, in
2010, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense under Kansas law, the
possession of drug paraphernalia to “store, contain, conceal,
inject, ingest, inhale or otherwise introduce a controlled
substance into the human body.” Kan. Stat. Ann.
§21–5709(b)(2) (2013 Cum. Supp.). The sole
“paraphernalia” Mellouli was charged with possessing
was a sock in which he had placed four orange tablets. The criminal
charge and plea agreement did not identify the controlled substance
involved, but Mellouli had acknowledged, prior to the charge and
plea, that the tablets were Adderall. Mellouli was sentenced to a
suspended term of 359 days and 12 months’ probation.
In February 2012, several months after Mellouli
successfully completed probation, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement officers arrested him as deportable under 8
U. S. C. §1227(a)(2)(B)(i) based on his Kansas
misde-meanor conviction. Section 1227(a)(2)(B)(i) authorizes the
removal of an alien “convicted of a violation of . . . any
law or regulation of a State, the United States, or a foreign
country relating to a controlled substance (as defined in section
802 of Title 21).” We hold that Mellouli’s Kansas
conviction for concealing unnamed pills in his sock didnot trigger
removal under §1227(a)(2)(B)(i). The drug-paraphernalia
possession law under which he was convicted, Kan. Stat. Ann.
§21–5709(b), by definition, related to a controlled
substance: The Kansas statute made it unlawful “to use or
possess with intent to use any drug paraphernalia to
. . . store [or] conceal . . . a controlled
substance.” But it was immaterial under that law whether the
substance was
defined in 21 U. S. C. §802.
Nor didthe State charge, or seek to prove, that Mellouli possessed
a substance on the §802 schedules. Federal law
(§1227(a)(2)(B)(i)), therefore, did not authorize
Mellouli’s removal.
I
A
This case involves the interplay between
several federal and state statutes. Section 1227(a)(2)(B)(i), a
provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 66Stat. 163, as
amended, authorizes the removal of an alien “convicted of a
violation of . . . any law or regulation of a State, the
United States, or a foreign country relating to a controlled
substance (as defined in section 802 of Title 21), other than a
single offense involving possession for one’s own use of 30
grams or less of marijuana.” Section 1227(a)(2)(B)(i)
incorporates 21 U. S. C. §802, which limits the term
“controlled substance” to a “drug or other
substance” included in one of five federal schedules.
§802(6).
The statute defining the offense to which
Mellouli pleaded guilty, Kan. Stat. Ann. §21–5709(b),
proscribes “possess[ion] with intent to use any drug
paraphernalia to,” among other things, “store” or
“conceal” a “controlled substance.” Kansas
defines “controlled substance” as any drug included on
its own schedules, and makes no reference to §802 or any other
federal law. §21–5701(a).[
1] At the time of Mellouli’s conviction,
Kansas’ schedules included at least nine substances not
included in the federal lists. See §65–4105(d)(30),
(31), (33), (34), (36) (2010 Cum. Supp.); §65–4111(g)
(2002); §65–4113(d)(1), (e), (f ) (2010 Cum.
Supp.); see also Brief for Respondent 9, n. 2.
The question presented is whether a Kansas
conviction for using drug paraphernalia to store or conceal a
controlled substance, §21–5709(b), subjects an alien to
deportation under §1227(a)(2)(B)(i), which applies to an alien
“convicted of a violation of [a state law] relating to a
controlled substance (as defined in [§802]).”
B
Mellouli, a citizen of Tunisia, entered the
United States on a student visa in 2004. He attended U. S.
universities, earning a bachelor of arts degree,
magna cum
laude, as well as master’s degrees in applied mathematics
and economics. After completing his education, Mellouli worked as
an actuary and taught mathematics at the University of
Missouri-Columbia. In 2009, he became a conditional permanent
resident and, in 2011, a lawful permanent resident. Since December
2011, Mellouli has been engaged to be married to a U. S.
citizen.
In 2010, Mellouli was arrested for driving under
the influence and driving with a suspended license. During a
postarrest search in a Kansas detention facility, deputies
discovered four orange tablets hidden in Mellouli’s sock.
According to a probable-cause affidavit submitted in the state
prosecution, Mellouli acknowledged that the tablets were Adderall
and that he did not have a prescription for the drugs. Adderall,
the brand name of an amphetamine-based drug typically prescribed to
treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder,[
2] is a controlled substance under both federal
and Kansas law. See 21 CFR §1308.12(d)(1) (2014) (listing
“amphetamine” and its “salts” and
“isomers”); Kan. Stat. Ann. §65–4107(d)(1)
(2013 Cum. Supp.) (same). Based on the probable-cause affidavit, a
criminal complaint was filed charging Mellouli with trafficking
contraband in jail.
Ultimately, Mellouli was charged with only the
lesser offense of possessing drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor. The
amended complaint alleged that Mellouli had “use[d] or
possess[ed] with intent to use drug paraphernalia, to-wit: a sock,
to store, contain, conceal, inject, ingest, inhale or otherwise
introduce into the human body a controlled substance.” App.
23. The complaint did not identify the substance contained in the
sock. Mellouli pleaded guilty to the paraphernalia possession
charge; he also pleaded guilty to driving under the influence. For
both offenses, Mellouli was sentenced to a suspended term of 359
days and 12 months’ probation.
In February 2012, several months after Mellouli
successfully completed probation, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement officers arrested him as deportable under
§1227(a)(2)(B)(i) based on his paraphernalia possession
conviction. An Immigration Judge ordered Mellouli deported, and the
Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed the order. Mellouli was
deported in 2012.
Under federal law, Mellouli’s concealment
of controlled-substance tablets in his sock would not have
qualified as a drug-paraphernalia offense. Federal law criminalizes
the sale of or commerce in drug paraphernalia, but possession alone
is not criminalized at all. See 21 U. S. C.
§863(a)–(b). Nor does federal law define drug
paraphernalia to include common household or ready-to-wear items
like socks; rather, it defines paraphernalia as any
“equipment, product, or material” which is
“primarily
intended or designed for use” in
connection with various drug-related activities. §863(d)
(emphasis added). In 19 States as well, the conduct for which
Mellouli was convicted—use of a sock to conceal a controlled
substance—is not a criminal offense. Brief for National
Immigrant Justice Center et al. as
Amici Curiae 7. At
most, it is a low-level infraction, often not attended by a right
to counsel.
Id., at 9–11.
The Eighth Circuit denied Mellouli’s
petition for review. 719 F. 3d 995 (2013). We granted
certiorari, 573 U. S.___ (2014), and now reverse the judgment
of the EighthCircuit.
II
We address first the rationale offered by the
BIA and affirmed by the Eighth Circuit, which differentiates
paraphernalia offenses from possession and distribution offenses.
Essential background, in evaluating the rationale shared by the BIA
and the Eighth Circuit, is the categorical approach historically
taken in determining whether a state conviction renders an alien
removable under the immigration statute.[
3] Because Congress predicated de-portation “on
convictions, not conduct,” the approach looks to the
statutory definition of the offense of conviction, not to the
particulars of an alien’s behavior. Das, The Immigration
Penalties of Criminal Convictions: Resurrecting Categorical
Analysis in Immigration Law, 86 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 1669, 1701, 1746
(2011). The state conviction triggers removal only if, by
definition, the underlying crime falls within a category of
removable offenses defined by federal law.
Ibid. An
alien’s actual conduct is irrelevant to the inquiry, as the
adjudicator must “presume that the conviction rested upon
nothing more than the least of the acts criminalized” under
the state statute.
Moncrieffe v.
Holder, 569 U. S.
___, ___ (2013) (slip op., at 5) (internal quotation marks and
alterations omitted).[
4]
The categorical approach “has a long
pedigree in our Nation’s immigration law.”
Id.,
at ___ (slip op., at 6). As early as 1913, courts examining the
federal immigration statute concluded that Congress, by tying
immigration penalties to
convictions, intended to
“limi[t] the immigration adjudicator’s assessment of a
past criminal conviction to a legal analysis of the statutory
offense,” and to disallow “[examination] of the facts
underlying the crime.” Das,
supra, at 1688, 1690.
Rooted in Congress’ specification of
conviction, not conduct, as the trigger for immigration
consequences, the categorical approach is suited to the realities
of the system. Asking immigration judges in each case to determine
the circumstances underlying a state conviction would burden a
system in which “large numbers of cases [are resolved by]
immigration judges and front-line immigration officers, often years
after the convictions.” Koh, The Whole Better than the Sum: A
Case for the Categorical Approach to Determining the Immigration
Consequences of Crime, 26 Geo. Immigration L. J. 257, 295 (2012).
By focusing on the legal question of what a conviction
necessarily established, the categorical approach ordinarily
works to promote efficiency, fairness, and predictability in the
administration of immigration law. See
id., at
295–310; Das,
supra, at 1725–1742. In
particular, the approach enables aliens “to anticipate the
immigration consequences of guilty pleas in criminal court,”
and to enter “ ‘safe harbor’ guilty pleas
[that] do not expose the [alien defendant] to the risk of
immigration sanctions.” Koh,
supra, at 307. See Das,
supra, at 1737–1738.[
5]
The categorical approach has been applied
routinely to assess whether a state drug conviction triggers
removal under the immigration statute. As originally enacted, the
removal statute specifically listed covered offenses and covered
substances. It made deportable, for example, any alien convicted of
“import[ing],” “buy[ing],” or
“sell[ing]” any “narcotic drug,” defined as
“opium, coca leaves, cocaine, or any salt, derivative, or
preparation of opium or coca leaves, or cocaine.” Ch. 202,
42Stat. 596–597. Over time, Congress amended the statute to
include additional offenses and additional narcotic drugs.[
6] Ultimately, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act
of 1986 replaced the increasingly long list of controlled
substances with the now familiar reference to “a controlled
substance (as defined in [§802]).” See §1751,
100Stat. 3207–47. In interpreting successive versions of the
removal statute, the BIA inquired whether the state statute under
which the alien was convicted covered federally controlled
substances and not others.[
7]
Matter of Paulus, 11
I. & N. Dec. 274 (1965), is illustrative. At the time
the BIA decided
Paulus, the immigration statute made
deportable any alien who had been “convicted of a violation
of . . . any law or regulation relating to the illicit
possession of or traffic in narcotic drugs or mari-huana.”
Id., at 275. California controlled certain
“narcotics,” such as peyote, not listed as
“narcotic drugs” under federal law.
Ibid. The
BIA concluded that an alien’s California conviction for
offering to sell an unidentified “narcotic” was not a
deportable offense, for it was possible that the conviction
involved a substance, such as peyote, controlled only under
California law.
Id., at 275–276. Because the
alien’s conviction was not necessarily predicated upon a
federally controlled “narcotic drug,” the BIA concluded
that the conviction did not establish the alien’s
deportability.
Id., at 276.
Under the
Paulus analysis, adhered to as
recently as 2014 in
Matter of Ferreira, 26 I. & N. Dec.
415 (BIA 2014),[
8] Mellouli
would not be deportable. Mellouli pleaded guilty to concealing
unnamed pills in his sock. At the time of Mellouli’s
conviction, Kansas’ schedules of controlled substances
included at least nine substances—
e.g., salvia and
jimson weed—not defined in §802. See Kan. Stat. Ann.
§65–4105(d)(30), (31). The state law involved in
Mellouli’s conviction, therefore, like the California statute
in
Paulus, was not confined to federally controlled
substances; it required no proof by the prosecutor that Mellouli
used his sock to conceal a substance listed under §802, as
opposed to a substance controlled only under Kansas law. Under the
categorical approach applied in
Paulus, Mellouli’s
drug-paraphernalia conviction does not render him deportable. In
short, the state law under which he was charged categorically
“relat[ed] to a controlled substance,” but was not
limited to substances “defined in
[§802].”[
9]
The BIA, however, announced and applied a
different approach to drug-paraphernalia offenses (as distinguished
from drug possession and distribution offenses) in
Matter of
Martinez Espinoza, 25 I. & N. Dec. 118 (2009). There, the
BIA ranked paraphernalia statutes as relating to “the drug
trade in general.”
Id., at 121. The BIA rejected the
argument that a paraphernalia conviction should not count at all
because it targeted implements, not controlled substances.
Id., at 120. It then reasoned that a paraphernalia
conviction “relates to” any and all controlled
substances, whether or not federally listed, with which the
paraphernalia can be used.
Id., at 121. Under this
reasoning, there is no need to show that the type of controlled
substance involved in a paraphernalia conviction is one defined in
§802.
The Immigration Judge in this case relied upon
Martinez Espinoza in ordering Mellouli’s removal,
quoting that decision for the proposition that
“ ‘the requirement of a correspondence between the
Federal and State controlled substance schedules, embraced by
Matter of Paulus . . . has never been
extended’ ” to paraphernalia offenses. App. to
Pet. for Cert. 32 (quoting
Martinez Espinoza, 25
I. & N. Dec., at 121). The BIA affirmed, reasoning
that Mellouli’s conviction for possession of drug
paraphernalia “involves drug trade in general and, thus, is
covered under [§1227(a)(2)(B)(i)].” App. to Pet. for
Cert. 18. Denying Mellouli’s petition for review, the Eighth
Circuit deferred to the BIA’s decision in
Martinez
Espinoza, and held that a Kansas paraphernalia conviction
“ ‘relates to’ a federal controlled
substance because it is a crime . . . ‘associated
with the drug trade in general.’ ” 719 F. 3d,
at 1000.
The disparate approach to state drug
convictions, devised by the BIA and applied by the Eighth Circuit,
finds no home in the text of §1227(a)(2)(B)(i). The approach,
moreover, “leads to consequences Congress could not have
intended.”
Moncrieffe, 569 U. S., at ___ (slip
op., at 15). Statutes should be interpreted “as a symmetrical
and coherent regulatory scheme.”
FDA v.
Brown &
Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120, 133 (2000)
(internal quotation marks omitted). The BIA, however, has adopted
conflicting positions on the meaning of §1227(a)(2)(B)(i),
distinguishing drug possession and distribution offenses from
offenses involving the drug trade in general, with the anomalous
result that minor paraphernalia possession offenses are treated
more harshly than drug possession and distribution offenses. Drug
possession and distribution convictions trigger removal only if
they necessarily involve a federally controlled substance, see
Paulus, 11 I. & N. Dec. 274, while convictions
for paraphernalia possession, an offense less grave than drug
possession and distribution, trigger removal whether or not they
necessarily implicate a federally controlled substance, see
Martinez Espinoza, 25 I. & N. Dec. 118. The incongruous
upshot is that an alien is
not removable for
possessing a substance controlled only under Kansas law, but
he
is removable for using a sock to contain that substance.
Because it makes scant sense, the BIA’s interpretation, we
hold, is owed no deference under the doctrine described in
Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v.
Natural Resources
Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843 (1984) .
III
Offering an addition to the BIA’s
rationale, the Eighth Circuit reasoned that a state paraphernalia
possession conviction categorically relates to a federally
controlled substance so long as there is “nearly a complete
overlap” between the drugs controlled under state and federal
law. 719 F. 3d, at 1000.[
10] The Eighth Circuit’s analysis, however,
scarcely explains or ameliorates the BIA’s anomalous
separation of paraphernalia possession offenses from drug
possession and distribution offenses.
Apparently recognizing this problem, the
Government urges, as does the dissent, that the overlap between
state and federal drug schedules supports the removal of aliens
convicted of
any drug crime, not just paraphernalia
of-fenses. As noted, §1227(a)(2)(B)(i) authorizes the removal
of any alien “convicted of a violation of . . . any
law or reg-ulation of a State, the United States, or a
foreigncountry relating to a controlled substance (as defined in
[§802]).” According to the Government, the words
“relating to” modify “law or regulation,”
rather than “violation.” Brief for Respondent
25–26 (a limiting phrase ordinarily modifies the last
antecedent). Therefore, the Government argues, aliens who commit
“drug crimes” in States whose drug schedules
substantially overlap the federal schedules are removable, for
“state statutes that criminalize hundreds of federally
controlled drugs and a handful of similar substances, are laws
‘relating to’ federally controlled substances.”
Brief for Respondent 17.
We do not gainsay that, as the Government urges,
the last reasonable referent of “relating to,” as those
words appear in §1227(a)(2)(B)(i), is “law or
regulation.” The removal provision is thus satisfied when the
elements that make up the state crime of conviction relate to a
federally controlled substance. As this case illustrates, however,
the Government’s construction of the federal removal statute
stretches to the breaking point, reaching state-court convictions,
like Mellouli’s, in which “[no] controlled substance
(as defined in [§802])” figures as an element of the
offense. We recognize, too, that the §1227(a)(2)(B)(i) words
to which the dissent attaches great weight,
i.e.,
“relating to,”
post, at 2–3, are
“broad” and “indeterminate.”
Maracich v.
Spears, 570 U. S. ___, ___ (2013)
(slip op., at 9) (internal quotation marks and brackets
omitted).[
11] As we
cautioned in
New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue
Shield Plans v.
Travelers Ins. Co., 514 U. S. 645,
655 (1995) , those words, “extend[ed] to the furthest stretch
of [their] indeterminacy, . . . stop nowhere.”
“[C]ontext,” therefore, may “tu[g]
. . . in favor of a narrower reading.”
Yates
v.
United States, 574 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op.,
at 10). Context does so here.
The historical background of
§1227(a)(2)(B)(i) demonstrates that Congress and the BIA have
long required a direct link between an alien’s crime of
conviction and a particular federally controlled drug.
Supra, at 8–9. The Government’s position here
severs that link by authorizing deportation any time the state
statute of conviction bears some general relation to federally
controlled drugs. The Government offers no cogent reason why its
position is limited to state drug schedules that have a
“substantial overlap” with the federal schedules. Brief
for Respondent 31. A statute with
any overlap would seem to
be
related to federally controlled drugs. Indeed, the
Government’s position might well encompass convictions for
offenses related to drug activity more generally, such as gun
possession, even if those convictions do not actually involve drugs
(let alone federally controlled drugs). The Solicitor General,
while resisting this particular example, acknowledged that
convictions under statutes “that have some connection to
drugs indirectly” might fall within §1227(a)(2)(B)(i).
Tr. of Oral Arg. 36. This sweeping interpretation departs so
sharply from the statute’s text and history that it cannot be
considered a permissible reading.
In sum, construction of §1227(a)(2)(B)(i)
must be faithful to the text, which limits the meaning of
“controlled substance,” for removal purposes, to the
substances controlled under §802. We therefore reject the
argument that
any drug offense renders an alien removable,
without regard to the appearance of the drug on a §802
schedule. Instead, to trigger removal under §1227(a)(2)(B)(i),
the Government must connect an element of the alien’s
conviction to a drug “defined in [§802].”
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the
U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.