Monsalvo Velazquez v. Bondi

Majority — Gorsuch

Joined by: Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson

The majority held that the word "days" in the voluntary-departure statute carries a specialized legal meaning — one that has been embedded in immigration regulations since at least the 1950s — under which deadlines do not expire on weekends or legal holidays but instead roll over to the next business day. The Court reasoned that when Congress passes a new law against the backdrop of a long-standing government practice, courts presume the new law follows that same practice. The majority further noted that the government itself conceded that two other deadlines in the very same section of the 1996 immigration law — for motions to reopen and reconsider — already work this way, and that identical words in the same statute should carry the same meaning. The Court rejected the government's argument that a "procedural vs. substantive" distinction justified treating the departure deadline differently, finding no such distinction in the statute's text or in the government's own longstanding regulations. The majority also pointed out that the government's own enforcement rules, issued after the 1996 law, never suggested the voluntary-departure deadline was exempt from the business-day extension rule.

Dissent reasoning

The dissent, led by Justice Thomas (joined in full by Justice Alito, and in part by Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett), argued primarily that the Court should not have decided the merits at all, because the case presented a serious and unresolved question about whether the courts even had the legal authority — called "jurisdiction" — to hear it. The dissenters argued that federal courts can only review a narrow category of immigration decisions tied to a "final order of removal," and that the immigrant here was not actually challenging his removal order — he was only asking for a clarification about his departure deadline, which is a separate matter. Justice Alito wrote separately on the merits, arguing that "60 days" means exactly what it says in ordinary English — 60 calendar days — and that the regulatory rule about weekends and holidays was written only for deadlines in the immigration regulations, not for deadlines set by Congress in a statute. He argued that the specialized filing-deadline rule makes sense for court filings (because courthouses are closed on weekends) but not for leaving the country (because roads, airports, and borders remain open on weekends). Justice Barrett wrote separately to argue that no matter how broadly one defines a "final order of removal," the immigrant here was not disputing any part of that order, and therefore the courts lacked authority to hear his case.