Justice Stevens

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Both the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), enacted on April 24,1996, 110 Stat. 1214, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), enacted on September 30, 1996, 110 Stat. 3009-546, contain comprehensive amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 66 Stat. 163, as amended, 8 U. S. C. § 1101 et seq. This case raises two important questions about the impact of those amendments. The first question is a procedural one, concerning the effect of those amendments on the availability of habeas corpus jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. §2241. The second question is a • substantive one, concerning the impact of the amendments on conduct that occurred before *293their enactment and on the availability of discretionary relief from deportation.

Respondent, Enrico St. Cyr, is a citizen of Haiti who was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 1986. Ten years later, on March 8, 1996, he pleaded guilty in a state court to a charge of selling a controlled substance in violation of Connecticut law. That conviction made him deportable. Under pre-AEDPA law applicable at the time of his conviction, St. Cyr would have been eligible for a waiver of deportation at the discretion of the Attorney General. However, removal proceedings against him were not commenced until April 10, 1997, after both AEDPA and IIRIRA became effective, and, as the Attorney General interprets those statutes, he no longer has discretion to grant such a waiver.

In his habeas corpus petition, respondent has alleged that the restrictions on discretionary relief from deportation contained in the 1996 statutes do not apply to removal proceedings brought against an alien who pleaded guilty to a de-portable crime before their enactment. The District Court accepted jurisdiction of his application and agreed with his submission. In accord with the decisions of four other Circuits, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed.1 229 F. 3d 406 (2000). The importance of both questions warranted our grant of certiorari. 531 U. S. 1107 (2001).

I

The character of the pre-AEDPA and pre-IIRIRA law that gave the Attorney General discretion to waive deportation in certain cases is relevant to our appraisal of both the substantive and the procedural questions raised by *294the petition of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). We shall therefore preface our discussion of those questions with an overview of the sources, history, and scope of that law.

Subject to certain exceptions, § 3 of the Immigration Act of 1917 excluded from admission to the United States several classes of aliens, including, for example, those who had committed crimes “involving moral turpitude.” 39 Stat. 875. The seventh exception provided “[t]hat aliens returning after a temporary absence to an unrelinquished United States domicile of seven consecutive years may be admitted in the discretion of the Secretary of Labor, and under such conditions as he may prescribe.” Id., at 878.2 Although that provision applied literally only to exclusion proceedings, and although the deportation provisions of the statute did not contain a similar provision, the INS relied on §3 to grant relief in deportation proceedings involving aliens who had departed and returned to this country after the ground for deportation arose. See, e. g., Matter of L, 1 I. & N. Dec. 1, 2 (1940).3

Section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which replaced and roughly paralleled § 3 of the 1917 Act, excluded from the United States several classes of aliens, including those convicted of offenses involving moral turpitude or the illicit traffic in narcotics. See 66 Stat. 182-187. As with the prior law, this section was subject to a proviso granting the Attorney General broad discretion to *295admit excludable aliens. See id., at 187. That proviso, codified at 8 U. S. C. § 1182(c), stated:

“Aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence who temporarily proceeded abroad voluntarily and not under an order of deportation, and who are returning to a lawful unrelinquished domicile of seven consecutive years, may be admitted in the discretion of the Attorney General....”

Like § 3 of the 1917 Act, § 212(c) was literally applicable only to exclusion proceedings, but it too has been interpreted by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) to authorize any permanent resident alien with “a lawful unrelinquished domicile of seven consecutive years” to apply for a discretionary waiver from deportation. See Matter of Silva, 16 I. & N. Dec. 26, 30 (1976) (adopting position of Francis v. INS, 532 F. 2d 268 (CA2 1976)). If relief is granted, the deportation proceeding is terminated and the alien remains a permanent resident.

The extension of § 212(c) relief to the deportation context has had great practical importance, because deportable offenses have historically been defined broadly. For example, under the INA, aliens are deportable upon conviction for two crimes of “moral turpitude” (or for one such crime if it occurred within five years of entry into the country and resulted in a jail term of at least one year). See 8 U. S. C. §§ 1227(a)(2)(A)(i)-(ii) (1994 ed., Supp. V). In 1988, Congress further specified that an alien is deportable upon conviction for any “aggravated felony,” Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, 102 Stat. 4469-4470, § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii), which was defined to include numerous offenses without regard to how long ago they were committed.4 Thus, the class of aliens *296whose continued residence in this country has depended on their eligibility for § 212(c) relief is extremely large, and not surprisingly, a substantial percentage of their applications for § 212(c) relief have been granted.5 Consequently, in the period between 1989 and 1995 alone, § 212(c) relief was granted to over 10,000 aliens.6

*297Three statutes enacted in recent years have reduced the size of the class of aliens eligible for such discretionary relief. In 1990, Congress amended § 212(c) to preclude from discretionary relief anyone convicted of an aggravated felony who had served a term of imprisonment of at least five years. §511, 104 Stat. 5052 (amending 8 U. S. C. § 1182(c)). In 1996, in § 440(d) of AEDPA, Congress identified a broad set of offenses for which convictions would preclude such relief. See 110 Stat. 1277 (amending 8 U. S. C. § 1182(c)).7 And finally, that same year, Congress passed IIRIRA. That statute, inter alia, repealed § 212(c), see § 304(b), 110 Stat. 3009-597, and replaced it with a new section that gives the Attorney General the authority to cancel removal for a narrow class of inadmissible or deportable aliens, see id., at 3009-594 (creating 8 U. S. C. § 1229b (1994 ed., Supp. V)). So narrowed, that class does not include anyone previously “convicted of any aggravated felony.” §1229b(a)(3) (1994 ed., Supp. V).

In the Attorney General’s opinion, these amendments have entirely withdrawn his § 212(c) authority to waive deportation for aliens previously convicted of aggravated felonies. Moreover, as a result of other amendments adopted in AEDPA and IIRIRA, the Attorney General also maintains that there is no judicial forum available to decide whether these statutes did, in fact, deprive him of the power to grant such relief. As we shall explain below, we disagree on both points. In our view, a federal court does have jurisdiction to decide the merits of the legal question, and *298the District Court and the Court of Appeals decided that question correctly in this case.

1 — 4 K-<

The first question we must consider is whether the District Court retains jurisdiction under the general habeas corpus statute, 28 U. S. C. § 2241, to entertain St. Cyr’s challenge. His application for a writ raises a pure question of law. He does not dispute any of the facts that establish his deport-ability or the conclusion that he is deportable. Nor does he contend that he would have any right to have an unfavorable exercise of the Attorney General’s discretion reviewed in a judicial forum. Rather, he contests the Attorney General’s conclusion that, as a matter of statutory interpretation, he is not eligible for discretionary relief.

The District Court held, and the Court of Appeals agreed, that it had jurisdiction to answer that question in a habeas corpus proceeding.8 The INS argues, however, that four sections of the 1996 statutes — specifically, § 401(e) of AEDPA and three sections of IIRIRA (8 U. S. C. §§ 1252(a)(1), 1252(a)(2)(C), and 1252(b)(9) (1994 ed., Supp. V)) — stripped the, courts of jurisdiction to decide the question of law presented by respondent’s habeas corpus application.

For the INS to prevail it must overcome both the strong presumption in favor of judicial review of administrative action9 and the longstanding rule requiring a clear statement of congressional intent to repeal habeas jurisdiction. See Ex parte Yerger, 8 Wall. 85, 102 (1869) (“We are not at liberty to except from [habeas corpus jurisdiction] any cases not plainly excepted by law”); Felker v. Turpin, 518 U. S. 651, 660-661 (1996) (noting that “[n]o provision of Title I *299mentions our authority to entertain original habeas petitions,” and the statute “makes no mention of our authority to hear habeas petitions filed as original matters in this Court”).10 Implications from statutory text or legislative history are not sufficient to repeal habeas jurisdiction; instead, Congress must articulate specific and unambiguous statutory directives to effect a repeal. Ex parte Yerger, 8 Wall., at 105 (“Repeals by implication are not favored. They are seldom admitted except on the ground of repugnancy; and never, we think, when the former act can stand together with the new act”).11

In this case, the plain statement rule draws additional reinforcement from other canons of statutory construction. First, as a general matter, when a particular interpretation of a statute invokes the outer limits of Congress’ power, we expect a clear indication that Congress intended that result. See Edward J DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 575 (1988). Second, if an otherwise acceptable construction of a statute *300would raise serious constitutional problems, and where an alternative interpretation of the statute is “fairly possible,” see Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932), we are obligated to construe the statute to avoid such problems. See Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 341, 345-348 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring); United States ex rel. Attorney General v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U. S. 366, 408 (1909).12

A construction of the amendments at issue that would entirely preclude review of a pure question of law by any court would give rise to substantial constitutional questions. Article I, § 9, cl. 2, of the Constitution provides: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Because of that Clause, some “judicial intervention in deportation cases” is unquestionably “required by the Constitution.” Heikkila v. Barber, 345 U. S. 229, 235 (1953).

Unlike the provisions of AEDPA that we construed in Felker v. Turpin, 518 U. S. 651 (1996), this case involves an alien subject to a federal removal order rather than a person confined pursuant to a state-court conviction. Accordingly, regardless of whether the protection of the Suspension *301Clause encompasses all cases covered by the 1867 Amendment extending the protection of the writ to state prisoners, cf. id., at 663-664, or by subsequent legal developments, see LaGuerre v. Reno, 164 F. 3d 1035 (CA7 1998), at the absolute minimum, the Suspension Clause protects the writ “as it existed in 1789.”13 Felker, 518 U. S., at 663-664.

At its historical core, the writ of habeas corpus has served as a means of reviewing the legality of Executive detention, and it is in that context that its protections have been strongest.14 See, e. g., Swain v. Pressley, 430 U. S. 372, 380, n. 13 (1977); id., at 385-386 (Burger, C. J., concurring) (noting that “the traditional Great Writ was largely a remedy against executive detention”); Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 533 (1953) (Jackson, J., concurring in result) (“The historic purpose of the writ has been to relieve detention by executive authorities without judicial trial”). In England prior to 1789, in the Colonies,15 and in this Nation during the formative years of our Government, the writ of habeas corpus was available to nonenemy aliens as well as to citiz*302ens.16 It enabled them to challenge Executive and private detention in civil cases as well as criminal.17 Moreover, the issuance of the writ was not limited to challenges to the jurisdiction of the custodian, but encompassed detentions based on errors of law, including the erroneous application or interpretation of statutes.18 It was used to command the discharge of seamen who had a statutory exemption from impressment into the British Navy,19 to emancipate slaves,20 and to obtain the freedom of apprentices21 and asylum inmates.22 Most important, for our purposes, those early cases contain no suggestion that habeas relief in cases in*303volving Executive detention was only available for constitutional error.23

Notwithstanding the historical use of habeas corpus to remedy unlawful Executive action, the INS argues that this case falls outside the traditional scope of the writ at common law. It acknowledges that the writ protected an individual who was held without legal authority,' but argues that the writ would not issue where “an official had statutory authorization to detain the individual . . . but ... the official was not properly exercising his discretionary power to determine whether the individual should be released.” Brief for Respondent in Colcano-Martinez v. INS, O. T. 2000, No. 00-1011, p. 33. In this case, the INS points out, there is no dispute that the INS had authority in law to hold St. Cyr, as he is eligible for removal. St. Cyr counters that there is historical evidence of the writ issuing to redress the *304improper exercise of official discretion. See n. 23, supra; Hafetz, The Untold Story of Noncriminal Habeas Corpus and the 1996 Immigration Acts, 107 Yale L. J. 2609 (1998).

St. Cyr’s constitutional position also finds some support in our prior immigration cases. In Heikkila v. Barber, the Court observed that the then-existing statutory immigration scheme “had the effect of precluding judicial intervention in deportation cases except insofar as it was required by the Constitution,” 345 U. S., at 234-236 (emphasis added) — and that scheme, as discussed below, did allow for review on habeas of questions of law concerning an alien’s eligibility for discretionary relief. Therefore, while the INS’ historical arguments are not insubstantial, the ambiguities in the scope of the exercise of the writ at common law identified by St. Cyr, and the suggestions in this Court’s prior decisions as to the extent to which habeas review could be limited consistent with the Constitution, convince us that the Suspension Clause questions that would be presented by the INS’ reading of the immigration statutes before us are difficult and significant.24

In sum, even assuming that the Suspension Clause protects only the writ as it existed in 1789, there is substantial *305evidence to support the proposition that pure questions of law like the one raised by the respondent in this case could have been answered in 1789 by a common-law judge with power to issue the writ of habeas corpus. It necessarily follows that a serious Suspension Clause issue would be presented if we were to accept the INS’ submission that the 1996 statutes have withdrawn that power from federal judges and provided no adequate substitute for its exercise. See Hart, The Power of Congress to Limit the Jurisdiction of Federal Courts: An Exercise in Dialectic, 66 Harv. L. Rev. 1362, 1395-1397 (1953). The necessity of resolving such a serious and difficult constitutional issue — and the desirability of avoiding that necessity — simply reinforce the reasons for requiring a clear and unambiguous statement of congressional intent.

Moreover, to conclude that the writ is no longer available in this context would represent a departure from historical practice in immigration law. The writ of habeas corpus has always been available to review the legality of Executive detention. See Felker, 518 U. S., at 663; Swain v. Pressley, 430 U. S., at 380, n. 13; id., at 385-386 (Burger, C. J., concurring); Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S., at 533 (Jackson, J., concurring in result). Federal courts have been authorized to issue writs of habeas corpus since the enactment of the Judiciary Act of 1789, and §2241 of the Judicial Code provides that federal judges may grant the writ of habeas corpus on the application of a prisoner held “in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.”25 28 U. S. C. § 2241. Before and after the enactment in 1875 of the first statute regulating immigration, 18 Stat. 477, that jurisdiction was regularly invoked on behalf of noncitizens, particularly in the immigration context. See, e. g., In re *306 Kaine, 14 How. 103 (1853); United States v. Jung Ah Lung, 124 U. S. 621, 626-632 (1888).

Until the enactment of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, the sole means by which an alien could test the legality of his or her deportation order was by bringing a habeas corpus action in district court.26 See, e. g., United States v. Jung Ah Lung, 124 U. S. 621 (1888); Heikkila, 345 U. S., at 235; Chin Yow v. United States, 208 U. S. 8 (1908); Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U. S. 276, 284 (1922). In such cases, other than the question whether there was some evidence to support the order,27 the courts generally did not review factual determinations made by the Executive. See Ekiu v. United States, 142 U. S. 651, 659 (1892). However, they did review the Executive’s legal determinations. See Gegiow v. Uhl, 239 U. S. 3, 9 (1915) (“The statute by enumerating the conditions upon which the allowance to land may be denied, prohibits the denial in other cases. And when the record shows that a commissioner of immigration is exceeding his power, the alien may demand his release upon habeas corpus”); see also Neuman, Jurisdiction and the Rule of Law after the 1996 Immigration Act, 113 Harv. L. Rev. 1963, 1965-1969 (2000).28 In case after case, courts answered questions of law in ha-*307beas corpus proceedings brought by aliens challenging Executive interpretations of the immigration laws.29

Habeas courts also regularly answered questions of law that arose in the context of discretionary relief. See, e. g., United States ex rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 347 U. S. 260 (1964); United States ex rel. Hintopoulos v. Shaughnessy, 353 U. S. 72, 77 (1957).30 Traditionally, courts recognized a distinction between eligibility for discretionary relief, on the one hand, and the favorable exercise of discretion, on the other.hand. See Neuman, 113 Harv. L. Rev., at 1991 (noting the “strong tradition in habeas corpus law . . . that subjects the legally erroneous failure to exereise discretion, unlike a substantively unwise exercise of discretion, to inquiry on the writ”). Eligibility that was “governed by spe*308cific statutory standards” provided “a right to a ruling on an applicant’s eligibility,” even though the actual granting of relief was “not a matter of right under any circumstances, but rather is in all cases a matter of grace.” Jay v. Boyd, 351 U. S. 345, 353-354 (1956). Thus, even though the actual suspension of deportation authorized by § 19(c) of the Immigration Act of 1917 was a matter of grace, in United States ex rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 347 U. S. 260 (1954), we held that a deportable alien had a right to challenge the Executive’s failure to exercise the discretion authorized by the law. The exercise of the District Court’s habeas corpus jurisdiction to answer a pure question of law in this case is entirely consistent with the exercise of such jurisdiction in Accardi. See also United States ex rel. Hintopoulos v. Shaughnessy, 353 U. S., at 77.

Thus, under the pre-1996 statutory scheme — and consistent with its common-law antecedents — it is clear that St. Cyr could have brought his challenge to the BIA’s legal determination in a habeas corpus petition under 28 U. S. C. § 2241. The INS argues, however, that AEDPA and IIRIRA contain four provisions that express a clear and unambiguous statement of Congress’ intent to bar petitions brought under §2241, despite the fact that none of them mention that section. The first of those provisions is AEDPA’s § 401(e).

While the title of § 401(e) — “Elimination of Custody Review by Habeas Corpus” — would seem to support the INS’ submission, the actual text of that provision does not.31 As we have previously noted, a title alone is not controlling. Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections v. Yeskey, 524 U. S. 206, *309212 (1998) (“ ‘[T]he title of a statute . . . cannot limit the plain meaning of the text. For interpretive purposes, [it is] of use only when [it] shed[s] light on some ambiguous word or phrase’ ” (quoting Trainmen v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 331 U. S. 519, 528-529 (1947))). The actual text of § 401(e), unlike its title, merely repeals a subsection of the 1961 statute amending the judicial review provisions of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act. See n. 31, supra. Neither the title nor the text makes any mention of 28 U. S. C. §2241.

Under the 1952 Act, district courts had broad authority to grant declaratory and injunctive relief in immigration cases, including orders adjudicating deportability and those denying suspensions of deportability. See Foti v. INS, 375 U. S. 217, 225-226 (1963). The 1961 Act withdrew that jurisdiction from the district courts and provided that the procedures set forth in the Hobbs Act would be the "sole and exclusive procedure” for judicial review of final orders of deportation, subject to a series of exceptions. See 75 Stat. 651. The last of those exceptions stated that "any alien held in custody pursuant to an order of deportation may obtain review thereof by habeas corpus proceedings.” See id., at 652, codified at 8 U. S. C. § 1105a(10) (repealed Sept. 30, 1996).

The INS argues that the inclusion of that exception in the 1961 Act indicates that Congress must have believed that it would otherwise have withdrawn the pre-existing habeas corpus jurisdiction in deportation cases, and that, as a result, the repeal of that exception in AEDPA in 1996 implicitly achieved that result. It seems to us, however, that the 1961 exception is best explained as merely confirming the limited scope of the new review procedures. In fact, the 1961 House Report provides that this section "in no way disturbs the Habeas Corpus Act.”32 H. R. Rep. No. 1086, 87th Cong., 1st *310Sess., 29 (1961). Moreover, a number of the courts that considered the interplay between the general habeas provision and INA § 106(a)(10) after the 1961 Act and before the enactment of AEDPA did not read the 1961 Act’s specific habeas provision as supplanting jurisdiction under §2241. Orozco v. INS, 911 F. 2d 539, 541 (CA11 1990); United States ex rel. Marcello v. INS, 634 F. 2d 964, 967 (CA5 1981); Sotelo Mondragon v. Ilchert, 653 F. 2d 1254, 1255 (CA9 1980).

' In any case, whether § 106(a)(10) served as an independent grant of habeas jurisdiction or simply as an acknowledgment of continued jurisdiction pursuant to §2241, its repeal cannot be sufficient to eliminate what it did not originally grant— namely, habeas jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §2241.33 See Ex parte Yerger, 8 Wall., at 105-106 (concluding that the repeal of “an additional grant of jurisdiction” does not “operate as a repeal of jurisdiction theretofore allowed”); Ex parte McCardle, 7 Wall. 506, 515 (1869) (concluding that the repeal of portions of the 1867 statute conferring appellate jurisdiction on the Supreme Court in habeas proceedings did “not affect the jurisdiction which was previously exercised”).

The INS also relies on three provisions of IIRIRA, now codified at 8 U. S. C. §§ 1252(a)(1), 1252(a)(2)(C), and *3111252(b)(9) (1994 ed., Supp. V). As amended by §306 of IIRIRA, 8 U. S. C. § 1252(a)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. V) now provides that, with certain exceptions, including those set out in subsection (b) of the same statutory provision, “[j]udicial review of a final order of removal... is governed only by” the Hobbs Act’s procedures for review of agency orders in the courts of appeals. Similarly, § 1252(b)(9), which addresses the “ [consolidation of questions for judicial review,” provides that “[judicial review of all questions of law and fact, including interpretation and application of constitutional and statutory provisions, arising from any action taken or proceeding brought to remove an alien from the United States under this subchapter shall be available only in judicial review of a final order under this section.”34 Finally, § 1252(a)(2)(C), which concerns “[mjatters not subject to judicial review,” states: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no court shall have jurisdiction to review any final order of removal against an alien who is removable by reason of having committed” certain enumerated criminal offenses.

The term “judicial review” or “jurisdiction to review” is the focus of each of these three provisions. In the immigration context, “judicial review” and “habeas corpus” have historically distinct meanings. See Heikkila v. Barber, 345 U. S. 229 (1953). In Heikkila, the Court concluded that the finality provisions at issue “precluded] judicial review” to the maximum extent possible under the Constitution, and thus concluded that the APA was inapplicable. Id., at 235. Nevertheless, the Court reaffirmed the right to habeas *312corpus. Ibid. Noting that the limited role played by the courts in habeas corpus proceedings was far narrower than the judicial review authorized by the APA, the Court concluded that “it is the scope of inquiry on habeas corpus that differentiates” habeas review from “judicial review.” Id., at 236; see also, e. g., Terlinden v. Ames, 184 U. S. 270, 278 (1902) (noting that under the extradition statute then in effect there was “no right of review to be exercised by any court or judicial officer,” but that limited review on habeas was nevertheless available); Ekiu, 142 U. S., at 663 (observing that while a decision to exclude an alien was subject to inquiry on habeas, it could not be “impeached or reviewed”). Both §§ 1252(a)(1) and (a)(2)(C) speak of “judicial review”— that is, full, nonhabeas review. Neither explicitly mentions habeas,35 or 28 U. S. C. § 2241.36 Accordingly, neither pro*313vision speaks with sufficient clarity to bar jurisdiction pursuant to the general habeas statute.

The INS also makes a separate argument based on 8 U. S. C. § 1252(b)(9) (1994 ed., Supp. V). We have previously described § 1252(b)(9) as a “zipper clause.” A ADC, 525 U. S. 471, 483 (1999). Its purpose is to consolidate “judicial review” of immigration proceedings into one action in the court of appeals, but it applies only “[wjith respect to review of an order of removal under subsection (a)(1).” 8 U. S. C. § 1252(b) (1994 ed., Supp. V).37 Accordingly, this provision, by its own terms, does not bar habeas jurisdiction over removal orders not subject to judicial review under § 1252(a)(1) — including orders against aliens who are removable by reason of having committed one or more criminal offenses. Subsection (b)(9) simply provides for the consolidation of issues to be brought in petitions for “[jjudicial review,” which, as we note above, is a term historically dis*314tinct from habeas. See Mahadeo v. Reno, 226 F. 3d 3, 12 (CA1 2000); Flores-Miramontes v. INS, 212 F. 3d 1133, 1140 (CA9 2000). It follows that § 1252(b)(9) does not clearly apply to actions brought pursuant to the general habeas statute, and thus cannot repeal that statute either in part or in whole.

If it were clear that the question of law could be answered in another judicial forum, it might be permissible to accept the INS’ reading of § 1252. But the absence of such a forum, coupled with the lack of a clear, unambiguous, and express statement of congressional intent to preclude judicial consideration on habeas of such an important question of law, strongly counsels against adopting a construction that would raise serious constitutional questions.38 Cf. Felker, 518 U. S., at 660-661. Accordingly, we conclude that habeas jurisdiction under §2241 was not repealed by AEDPA and IIRIRA.

Ill

The absence of a clearly expressed statement of congressional intent also pervades our review of the merits of St. Cyr’s claim. Two important legal consequences ensued from respondent’s entry of a guilty plea in March 1996: (1) He became subject to deportation, and (2) he became eligible for a discretionary waiver of that deportation under the pre*315vailing interpretation of § 212(c). When IIRIRA went into effect in April 1997, the first consequence was unchanged except for the fact that the term “removal” was substituted for “deportation.” The issue that remains to be resolved is whether IIRIRA § 304(b) changed the second consequence by eliminating respondent’s eligibility for a waiver.

The INS submits that the statute resolves the issue because it unambiguously communicates Congress’ intent to apply the provisions of IIRIRA’s Title III-A to all removals initiated after the effective date of the statute, and, in any event, its provisions only operate prospectively and not retrospectively. ,The Court of Appeals, relying primarily on the analysis in our opinion in Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244 (1994), held, contrary to the INS’ arguments, that Congress’ intentions concerning the application of the “Cancellation of Removal” procedure are ambiguous and that the statute imposes an impermissible retroactive effect on aliens who, in reliance on the possibility of § 212(c) relief, pleaded guilty to aggravated felonies. See 229 F. 3d, at 416, 420. We agree.

Retroactive statutes raise special concerns. See Land-graf, 511 U. S., at 266. “The Legislature’s unmatched powers allow it to sweep away settled expectations suddenly and without individualized consideration. Its responsivity to political pressures poses a risk that it may be tempted to use retroactive legislation as a means of retribution against unpopular groups or individuals.”39 Ibid. Accordingly, “congressional enactments . . . will not be construed to have retroactive effect unless their language requires this *316result.” Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital, 488 U. S. 204, 208 (1988).

“[This] presumption against retroactive legislation is deeply rooted in our jurisprudence, and embodies a legal doctrine centuries older than our Republic. Elementary considerations of fairness dictate that individuals should have an opportunity to know what the law is and to conform their conduct accordingly; settled expectations should not be lightly disrupted. For that reason, the 'principle that the legal effect of conduct should ordinarily be assessed under the law that existed when the conduct took place has timeless and universal human appeal.’ Kaiser, 494 U. S., at 855 (Scalia, J., concurring). In a free, dynamic society, creativity in both commercial and artistic endeavors is fostered by a rule of law that gives people confidence about the legal consequences of their actions.” Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 265-266 (footnote omitted).

Despite the dangers inherent in retroactive legislation, it is beyond dispute that, within constitutional limits, Congress has the power to enact laws with retrospective effect. See id., at 268. A statute may not be applied retroactively, however, absent a clear indication from Congress that it intended such a result. “Requiring clear intent assures that Congress itself has affirmatively considered the potential unfairness of retroactive application and determined that it is an acceptable price to pay for the countervailing benefits.” Id., at 272-273. Accordingly, the first step in determining whether a statute has an impermissible retroactive effect is to ascertain whether Congress has directed with the requisite clarity that the law be applied retrospectively. Martin v. Radix, 527 U. S. 343, 352 (1999).

The standard for finding such unambiguous direction is a demanding one.. “[C]ases where this Court has found truly 'retroactive’ effect adequately authorized by statute have *317involved statutory language that was so clear that it could sustain only one interpretation.” Lindk v. Murphy, 521 U. S. 820, 328, n. 4 (1997). The INS makes several arguments in favor of its position that IIRIRA achieves this high level of clarity.

First, the INS points to the comprehensive nature of IIRIRA’s revision of federal immigration law. “Congress’s comprehensive establishment of a new immigration framework,” the INS argues, “shows its intent that, after a transition period, the provisions of the old law should no longer be applied at all.” Brief for Petitioner 33-34. We rejected a similar argument, however, in Landgraf, a case that, like this one, involved Congress’ comprehensive revision of an important federal statute. 511 U. S., at 260-261. By itself, the comprehensiveness of a congressional enactment says nothing about Congress’ intentions with respect to the retro-activity of the enactment’s individual provisions.40

The INS also points to the effective date for Title III-A as providing a clear statement of congressional intent to apply IIRIRA’s repeal of § 212(c) retroactively. See IIRIRA § 309(a), 110 Stat. 3009-625. But the mere promulgation of an effective date for a statute does not provide sufficient assurance that Congress specifically considered the potential unfairness that retroactive application would produce. For that reason, a “statement that a statute will become effective on a certain date does not even arguably suggest that it has any application to conduct that occurred at an earlier date.” Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 257.

The INS further argues that any ambiguity in Congress’ intent is wiped away by the “saving provision” in IIRIRA § 309(c)(1), 110 Stat. 3009-625. Brief for Petitioner 34-36. That provision states that, for aliens whose exclusion or deportation proceedings began prior to the Title III-A efifec-*318tive date, “the amendments made by [Title III-A] shall not apply, and ... the proceedings (including judicial review thereof) shall continue to be conducted without regard to such amendments.”41 This rule, however, does not communicate with unmistakable clarity Congress’ intention to apply its repeal of § 212(c) retroactively. Nothing in either § 309(c)(1) or the statute’s legislative history even discusses the effect of the statute on proceedings based on pre-IIRIRA convictions that are commenced after its effective date.42 Section 309(c)(1) is best read as merely setting out the procedural rules to be applied to removal proceedings pending on the effective date of the statute. Because “[cjhanges in procedural rules may often be applied in suits arising before their enactment without raising concerns about retroactivity,” Landgraf 511 U. S., at 275, it was necessary for Congress to identify which set of procedures would apply in those circumstances. As the Conference Report expressly explained, “[§ 309(c)] provides for the transition to new procedures in the case of an alien already in exclusion or deportation proceedings on the effective date.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 104-828, p. 222 (1996) (emphasis added).

Another reason for declining to accept the INS’ invitation to read § 309(c)(1) as dictating the temporal reach of IIRIRÁ § 304(b) is provided by Congress’ willingiiess, in other sections of IIRIRA, to indicate unambiguously its intention *319to apply specific provisions retroactively. IIRIRA’s amendment of the definition of “aggravated felony,” for example, clearly states that it applies with respect to “convietion[s]... entered before, on, or after” the statute’s enactment date. § 321(b).43 As the Court of Appeals noted, the fact that Con*320gress made some provisions of IIRIRA expressly applicable to prior convictions, but did not do so in regard to § 304(b), is an indication “that Congress did not definitively decide the issue of §304’s retroactive application to pre-enactment convictions.” See 229 F. 3d, at 415. The “saving provision” is therefore no more significant than the specification of an effective date.

The presumption against retroactive application of ambiguous statutory provisions, buttressed by “the longstanding principle of construing any lingering ambiguities in deportation statutes in favor of the alien,” INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U. S. 421, 449 (1987), forecloses the conclusion that, in enacting § 304(b), “Congress itself has affirmatively considered the potential unfairness of retroactive application and determined that it is an acceptable price to pay for the countervailing benefits.”44 Landgraf 511 U. S., at 272-273. We therefore proceed to the second step of Landgraf s retro-activity analysis in order to determine whether depriving removable aliens of consideration for § 212(c) relief produces an impermissible retroactive effect for aliens who, like respondent, were convicted pursuant to a plea agreement at a time when their plea would not have rendered them ineligible for § 212(c) relief.45

*321“The inquiry into whether a statute operates retroactively demands a commonsense, functional judgment about ‘whether the new provision attaches new legal consequences to events completed before its enactment.’” Martin, 527 U. S., at 357-358 (quoting Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 270). A statute has retroactive effect when it “‘takes away or impairs vested rights acquired under existing laws, or creates a new obligation, imposes a new duty, or attaches a new disability, in respect to transactions or considerations already past46 Id., at 269 (quoting Society for Propagation of the Gospel v. Wheeler, 22 F. Cas. 756, 767 (No. 13,156) (CC NH 1814) (Story, J.)). As we have repeatedly counseled, the judgment whether a particular statute acts retroactively “should be informed and guided by ‘familiar considerations of fair notice, reasonable reliance, and settled expectations.’” Martin, 527 U. S., at 358 (quoting Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 270).

IIRIRA’s elimination of any possibility of § 212(c) relief for people who entered into plea agreements with the expectation that they would be eligible for such relief clearly “‘attaches a new disability, in respect to transactions or considerations already past.’” Id., at 269. Plea agreements involve a quid pro quo between a criminal defendant and the government. See Newton v. Rumery, 480 U. S. 386, *322393, n. 3 (1987). In exchange for some perceived benefit, defendants waive several of their constitutional rights (including the right to a trial) and grant the government numerous “tangible benefits, such as promptly imposed punishment without the expenditure of prosecutorial resources. ” 47 Ibid. There can be little doubt that, as a general matter, alien defendants considering whether to enter into a plea agreement are acutely aware of the immigration consequences of their convictions.48 See Magana-Pizano v. INS, 200 F. 3d 603, 612 (CA9 1999) (“That an alien charged with a crime . . . would factor the immigration consequences of conviction in deciding whether to plead or proceed to trial is well-documented”); see also 3 Bender, Criminal Defense Techniques §§ 60A.01, 60A.02[2] (1999) (“ ‘Preserving the client’s right to remain in the United States may be more important to the client than any potential jail sentence’” (quoted in Brief for National Association of Criminal Defense Law*323yers et al. as Amici Curiae 13)). Given the frequency with which § 212(c) relief was granted in the years leading up to AEDPA and IIRIRA,49 preserving the possibility of such relief would have been one of the principal benefits sought by defendants deciding whether to accept a plea offer or instead to proceed to trial.50

The case of Charles Jideonwo, a petitioner in a parallel litigation in the Seventh Circuit, is instructive. Charged in 1994 with violating federal narcotics law, Jideonwo entered into extensive plea negotiations with the Government, the sole purpose of which was to ensure that ‘“he got less than five years to avoid what would have been a statutory bar on 212(c) relief.’” Jideonwo v. INS, 224 F. 3d 692, 699 (CA7 2000) (quoting the Immigration Judge’s findings of fact). The potential for unfairness in the retroactive application of IIRIRA § 304(b) to people like Jideonwo and St. Cyr is significant and manifest. Relying upon settled practice, the advice of counsel, and perhaps even assurances in open court that the entry of the plea would not foreclose § 212(c) relief, a great number of defendants in Jideonwo’s and St. Cyr’s position agreed to plead guilty.51 Now that prosecutors have received the benefit of these plea agreements, agreements that were likely facilitated by the aliens' belief in their continued eligibility for § 212(c) relief, it would surely be contrary to “familiar considerations of fair notice, reasonable reliance, and settled expectations,” Landgraf, 511 U. S., *324at 270, to hold that IIRIRA’s subsequent restrictions deprive them of any possibility of such relief.52

The INS argues that deportation proceedings (and the Attorney General’s discretionary power to grant relief from deportation) are “inherently prospective” and that, as a result, application of the law of deportation can never have a retroactive effect. Such categorical arguments are not particularly helpful in undertaking Landgrafs commonsense, functional retroactivity analysis. See Martin, 527 U. S., at 359. Moreover, although we have characterized deportation as “look[ing] prospectively to the respondent’s right to remain in this country in the future,” INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U. S. 1032, 1038 (1984), we have done so in order to reject the argument that deportation is punishment for past behavior and that deportation proceedings are therefore subject to the “various protections that apply in the context of a criminal trial.” Ibid. As our cases make clear, the presumption against retroactivity applies far beyond the confines of the criminal law. See Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 272. And our mere statement that deportation is not punishment for past crimes does not mean that we cannot consider an alien’s reasonable reliance on the continued availability of discretionary relief from deportation when deciding whether the elimination of such relief has a retroactive effect.53

*325Finally, the fact that § 212(c) relief is discretionary does not affect the propriety of our conclusion. There is a clear difference, for the purposes of retroactivity analysis, between facing possible deportation and facing certain deportation. Cf. Hughes Aircraft Co. v. United States ex rel. Schumer, 520 U. S. 939, 949 (1997) (an increased likelihood of facing a qui tarn, action constitutes an impermissible retroactive effect for the defendant); Lindsey v. Washington, 301 U. S. 397, 401 (1937) (“Removal of the possibility of a sentence of less than fifteen years . . . operates to [defendants’] detriment” (emphasis added)). Prior to AEDPA and IIRIRA, aliens like St. Cyr had a significant likelihood of receiving § 212(c) relief.54 Because respondent, and other aliens like him, almost certainly relied upon that likelihood in deciding whether to forgo their right to a trial, the elimination of any possibility of § 212(c) relief by IIRIRA has an obvious and severe retroactive effect.55

*326We find nothing in IIRIRA unmistakably indicating that Congress considered the question whether to apply its repeal of § 212(c) retroactively to such aliens. We therefore hold that § 212(c) relief remains available for aliens, like respondent, whose convictions were obtained through plea agreements and who, notwithstanding those convictions, would have been eligible for § 212(c) relief at the time of their plea under the law then in effect.

The judgment is affirmed.

It is so ordered.

Justice O’Connor,

dissenting.

I join Parts I and III of Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion in this case. I do not join Part II because I believe that, assuming, arguendo, that the Suspension Clause guarantees some minimum extent of habeas review, the right asserted by the alien in this case falls outside the scope of that review for the reasons explained by Justice Scalia in Part II-B of his dissenting opinion. The question whether the Suspension Clause assures habeas jurisdiction in this particular case properly is resolved on this ground alone, and there is no need to say more.

Justice Scalia,

with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Thomas join, and with whom Justice O’Connor joins as to Parts I and III, dissenting.

The Court today finds ambiguity in the utterly clear language of a statute that forbids the district court (and all *327other courts) to entertain the claims of aliens such as respondent St. Cyr, who have been found deportable by reason of their criminal acts. It fabricates a superclear statement, “magic words” requirement for the congressional expression of such an intent, unjustified in law and unparalleled in any other area of our jurisprudence. And as the fruit of its labors, it brings forth a version of the statute that affords criminal aliens more opportunities for delay-inducing judicial review than are afforded to noncriminal aliens, or even than were afforded to criminal aliens prior to this legislation concededly designed to expedite their removal. Because it is clear that the law deprives us of jurisdiction to entertain this suit, I respectfully dissent.

I

In categorical terms that admit of no exception, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of -1996 (IIRIRA), 110 Stat. 3009-546, unambiguously repeals the application of 28 U. S. C. § 2241 (the general habeas corpus provision), and of all other provisions for judicial review, to deportation challenges brought by certain kinds of criminal aliens. This would have been readily apparent to the reader, had the Court at the outset of its opinion set forth the relevant provisions of IIRIRA and of its statutory predecessor, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 110 Stat. 1214. I will begin by supplying that deficiency, and explaining IIRIRA’s jurisdictional scheme. It begins with what we have called a channeling or “‘zipper’ clause,” Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U. S. 471, 483 (1999)— namely, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(9) (1994 ed., Supp.V). This provision, entitled “Consolidation of questions for judicial review,” provides as follows:

“Judicial review of all questions of law and fact, including interpretation and application of constitutional and statutory provisions, arising from any action taken *328 or proceeding brought to remove an alien from the United States under this subchapter shall be available only in judicial review of a final order under this section.” (Emphases added.) ■

In other words, if. any review is available of any “questio[n] of law . . . arising from any action taken or proceeding brought to remove an alien from the United States under this súbchapter,” it is available “only in judicial review of a final order under this section [§ 1252].” What kind of review does that section provide? That is set forth in § 1252(a)(1), which states:

“Judicial review of a final order of removal (other than an order of removal without a hearing pursuant to [the expedited-removal provisions for undocumented aliens arriving at the border found in] section 1225(b)(1) of this title) is governed only by chapter 158 of title 28 [the Hobbs Act], except as provided in subsection (b) of this section [which modifies some of the Hobbs Act provisions] and except that the court may not order the taking of additional evidence under section 2847(c) of [Title 28].”

In other words, i/judicial review is available, it consists only of the modified Hobbs Act review specified in § 1252(a)(1).

In some cases (including, as it happens, the one before us), there can be no review at all, because IIRIRA categorically and unequivocally rules out judicial review of challenges to deportation brought by certain kinds of criminal aliens. Section 1252(a)(2)(C) provides:

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no court shall have jurisdiction to review any final order of removal’ against an alien who is removable by reason of having committed [one or more enumerated] criminal offense[s] [including drug-trafficking offenses of the sort of which respondent had been convicted].” (Emphases added.)

*329Finally, the pre-IIRIRA antecedent to the foregoing provisions — AEDPA § 401(e) — and the statutory background against which that was enacted, confirm that § 2241 habeas review, in the district court or elsewhere, has been unequivocally repealed. In 1961, Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA), 66 Stat. 163, by directing that the procedure for Hobbs Act review in the courts of appeals “shall .apply to, and shall be the sole and exclusive procedure for, the judicial review of all final orders of deportation” under the INA. 8 U. S. C. § 1105a(a) (repealed Sept. 30, 1996) (emphasis added). Like 8 U. S. C. § 1252(a)(2)(C) (1994 ed., Supp. V), this provision squarely prohibited §2241 district-court habeas review. At the same time that it enacted this provision, however, the 1961 Congress enacted a specific exception: “any alien held in custody pursuant to an order of deportation may obtain judicial review thereof by habeas corpus proceedings,” 8 U. S. C. § 1105a(a)(10) (1994 ed.). (This would of course have been surplusage had § 2241 habeas review not been covered by the “sole and exclusive procedure” provision.) Section 401(e) of AEDPA repealed this narrow exception, and there is no doubt what the repeal was thought to accomplish: the provision was entitled “Elimination of Custody Review by Habeas Corpus.” 110 Stat. 1268. It gave universal preclusive effect to the “sole and exclusive procedure” language of § 1105a(a). And it is this regime that IIRIRA has carried forward.

The Court’s efforts to derive ambiguity from this utmost clarity are unconvincing. First, the Court argues that §§ 1252(a)(2)(C) and 1252(b)(9) are not as clear as one might think — that, even though they are sufficient to repeal the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals, see Calcano-Martinez v. INS, post, at 351-352,1 they do not cover habeas jurisdiction in the district court, since, “[i]n the immigration context, ‘judicial review’ and ‘habeas corpus’ have historically dis*330tinct meanings,” ante, at 311, 312, n. 35. Of course § 1252(a)(2)(C) does not even use the term “judicial review” (it says “jurisdiction to review”) — but let us make believe it does. The Court’s contention that in this statute it does not include habeas corpus is decisively refuted by the language of § 1252(e)(2), enacted along with §§ 1252(a)(2)(C) and 1252(b)(9): “Judicial review of any determination made under section 1225(b)(1) of this title [governing review of expedited removal orders against undocumented aliens arriving at the border] is available in habeas corpus proceedings . . . .” (Emphases added.) It is hard to imagine how Congress could have made it any clearer that, when it used the term “judicial review” in IIRIRA, it included judicial review through habeas corpus. Research into the “historical” usage of the term “judicial review” is thus quite beside the point.

But the Court is demonstrably wrong about that as well. Before IIRIRA was enacted, from 1961 to 1996, the governing immigration statutes unquestionably treated “judicial review” as encompassing review by habeas corpus. As discussed earlier, 8 U. S. C. § 1105a (1994 ed.) made Hobbs Act review “the sole and exclusive procedure for, the judicial review of all Anal orders of deportation” (emphasis added), but created (in subsection (a)(10)) a limited exception for habeas corpus review. Section 1105a was entitled “ Judicial review of orders of deportation and exclusion” (emphasis added), and the exception for habeas corpus stated that “any alien held in custody pursuant to an order of deportation may obtain judicial review thereof by habeas corpus proceedings,” § 1105a(a)(10) (emphases added). Apart from this prior statutory usage, many of our own immigration eases belie the Court’s suggestion that the term “judicial review,” when used in the immigration context, does not include review by habeas corpus. See, e. g., United States v. Mendoza-Lopez, 481 U. S. 828, 836-837 (1987) (“[A]ny alien held in custody pursuant to an order of deportation may ob*331tain judicial review of that order in a habeas corpus proceeding” (emphases added)); Shaughnessy v. Pedreiro, 349 U. S. 48, 52 (1955) (“Our holding is that there is a right of judicial review of deportation orders other than by habeas corpus ...” (emphases added)); see also id., at 49.

The only support the Court offers in support of the asserted “longstanding distinction between ‘judicial review’ and ‘habeas,’ ” ante, at 312, n. 35, is language from a single opinion of this Court, Heikkila v. Barber, 345 U. S. 229 (1953).2 There, we “differentiate^]” “habeas corpus” from “judicial review as that term is used in the Administrative Procedure Act” Id., at 236 (emphasis added). But that simply asserts that habeas corpus review is different from ordinary APA review, which no one doubts. It does not assert that habeas corpus review is not judicial review at all. Nowhere does Heikkila make such an implausible contention.3

*332The Court next contends that the zipper clause, § 1252(b)(9), “by its own terms, does not bar” § 2241 district-court habeas review of removal orders, ante, at 313, because the opening sentence of subsection (b) states that “[w]ith respect to review of an order of removal under subsection (a)(1) of this section, the following requirements apply ... (Emphasis added.) But in the broad sense, § 1252(b)(9) does “apply” “to review of an order of removal under subsection (a)(1),” because it mandates that “review of all questions of law and fact. . . arising from any action taken or proceeding brought to remove an alien from the United States under this subchapter” must take place in connection with such review. This is “application” enough — and to insist that subsection (b)(9) be given effect only within the review of removal orders that takes place under subsection (a)(1), is to render it meaningless. Moreover, other of the numbered subparagraphs of subsection (b) make clear that the introductory sentence does not at all operate as a limitation upon what follows. Subsection (b)(7) specifies the procedure by which “a defendant in a criminal proceeding” charged with failing to depart after being ordered to do so may contest “the validity of [a removal] order” before trial; and subsection (b)(8) prescribes some of the prerogatives and responsibilities of the Attorney General and the alien after entry of a final removal order. These provisions have no effect if they must apply (even in the broad sense that subsection (b)(9) can be said to apply) “to review of an order of removal under subsection (a)(1).”

Unquestionably, unambiguously, and unmistakably, IIRIRA expressly supersedes §2241’s general provision for habeas jurisdiction. The Court asserts that Felker v. Turpin, 518 U. S. 651 (1996), and Ex parte Yerger, 8 Wall. 85 *333(1869), reflect a “longstanding rule requiring a clear statement of congressional intent to repeal habeas jurisdiction,” ante, at 298. They do no such thing. Those cases simply applied the general principle — not unique to habeas — that “[rjepeals by implication are not favored.” Felker, supra, at 660; Yerger, supra, at 105. Felker held that a statute which by its terms prohibited only further review by this Court (or by an en banc court of appeals) of a court-of-appeals panel’s “ ‘grant or denial of... authorization ... to file a second or successive [habeas] application,’ ” 518 U. S., at 657 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(E) (1994 ed., Supp. II)), should not be read to imply the repeal of this Court’s separate and distinct “authority [under 28 U. S. C. § 2241 and 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (1994 ed. and Supp. V)] to hear habeas petitions filed as original matters in this Court,” 518 U. S., at 661. Yerger held that an 1868 Act that by its terms “repealed] only so much of the act of 1867 as authorized appeals, or the exercise of appellate jurisdiction by this court,” should be read to “reach no [further than] the act of 1867,” and did not repeal by implication the appellate jurisdiction conferred by the Judiciary Act of 1789 and other pre-1867 enactments. 8 Wall., at 105. In the present case, unlike in Felker and Yerger, none of the statutory provisions relied upon — § 1252(a)(2)(C), § 1252(b)(9), or 8 U. S. C. § 1105a(a) (1994 ed.) — requires us to imply from one statutory provision the repeal of another. All by their terms prohibit the judicial review at issue in this case.

The Court insists, however, that since “[n]either [§ 1252(a)(1) nor § 1252(a)(2)(C)] explicitly mentions habeas, or 28 U. S. C. §2241,” “neither provision speaks with sufficient clarity to bar jurisdiction pursuant to the general ha-beas statute.” Ante, at 312-313. Even in those areas of our jurisprudence where we have adopted a “clear statement” rule (notably, the sovereign immunity cases to which the Court adverts, ante, at 299, n. 10), clear statement has never meant the kind of magic words demanded by the Court *334today — explicit reference to habeas or to § 2241 — rather than reference to “judicial review” in a statute that explicitly calls habeas corpus a form of judicial review. In Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 467 (1991), we said:

“This [the Court’s clear-statement requirement] does not mean that the [Age Discrimination in Employment] Act must mention [state] judges explicitly, though it does not. Cf. Dellmuth v. Muth, 491 U. S. 223, 233 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring). Rather, it must be plain to anyone reading the Act that it covers judges.”

In Gregory, as in United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U. S. 30, 34-35 (1992), and Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 241, 246 (1985), we held that the clear-statement requirement was not met, not because there was no explicit reference to the Eleventh Amendment, but because the statutory intent to eliminate state sovereign immunity was not clear. For the reasons discussed above, the intent to eliminate habeas jurisdiction in the present case is entirely clear, and that is all that is required.

It has happened before — too frequently, alas — that courts have distorted plain statutory text in order to produce a “more sensible” result. The unique accomplishment of today’s opinion is that the result it produces is as far removed from what is sensible as its statutory construction is from the language of the text. One would have to study our statute books for a long time to come up with a more unlikely disposition. By authorizing §2241 habeas review in the district court but foreclosing review in the court of appeals, see Calcano-Martinez, post, at 351-352, the Court’s interpretation routes all legal challenges to removal orders brought by criminal aliens to the district court, to be adjudicated under that court’s §2241 habeas authority, which specifies no time limits. After review by that court, criminal aliens will presumably have an appeal as of right to the court of appeals, and can then petition this Court for a writ of cer-*335tiorari. In contrast, noncriminal aliens seeking to challenge their removal orders — for example, those charged with having been inadmissible at the time of entry, with having failed to maintain their nonimmigrant status, with having procured a visa through a marriage that was not bona fide, or with having become, within five years after the date of entry, a public charge, see 8 U. S. C. §§ 1227(a)(1)(A), (a)(1)(C), (a)(1)(G), (a)(5) (1994 ;ed., Supp. V) — will still presumably be required to proceed directly to the court of appeals by way of petition for review, under the restrictive modified Hobbs Act review provisions set forth in § 1252(a)(1), including the 30-day filing deadline, see § 1252(b)(1). In fact, prior to the enactment of IIRIRA, criminal aliens also had to follow this procedure for immediate modified Hobbs Act review in the court of appeals. See 8 U. S. C. § 1105a(a) (1994 ed.). The Court has therefore succeeded in perverting a statu-' tory scheme designed to expedite the removal of criminal aliens into one that now affords them more opportunities for (and layers of) judicial review (and hence more opportunities for delay) than are afforded wow-criminal aliens — and more than were afforded criminal aliens prior to the enactment of IIRIRA.4 This outcome speaks for itself; no Congress ever imagined it.

To excuse the violence it does to the statutory text, the Court invokes the doctrine of constitutional doubt, which it asserts is raised by the Suspension Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 9, cl. 2. This uses one distortion to justify another, transmogrifying a doctrine designed to maintain “a just re*336spect for the legislature,” Ex parte Randolph, 20 F. Cas. 242, 254 (No. 11,558) (CC Va. 1833) (Marshall, C. J., on circuit), into a means of thwarting the clearly expressed intent of the legislature. The doctrine of constitutional doubt is meant to effectuate, not to subvert, congressional intent, by giving ambiguous provisions a meaning that will avoid constitutional peril, and that will conform with Congress’s presumed intent not to enact measures of dubious validity. The condition precedent for application of the doctrine is that the statute can reasonably be construed to avoid the constitutional difficulty. See, e. g., Miller v. French, 530 U. S. 327, 341 (2000) (“ ‘We cannot press statutory construction “to the point of disingenuous evasion” even to avoid a constitutional question’ ” (quoting United States v. Locke, 471 U. S. 84, 96 (1985), in turn quoting George Moore Ice Cream Co. v. Rose, 289 U. S. 373, 379 (1933))); Salinas v. United States, 522 U. S. 52, 60 (1997) (quoting Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 57, n. 9 (1996)). It is a device for interpreting what the statute says — not for ignoring what the statute says in order to avoid the trouble of determining whether what it says is unconstitutional. For the reasons I have set forth above, it is crystal clear that the statute before us here bars criminal aliens from obtaining judicial review, including §2241 district-court review, of their removal orders. It is therefore also crystal clear that the doctrine of constitutional doubt has no application.

In the remainder of this opinion I address the question the Court should have addressed: Whether these provisions of IIRIRA are unconstitutional.

II

A

The SuspensionClause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 9, cl. 2, provides as follows:

*337“The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

A straightforward reading of this text discloses that it does not guarantee any content to (or even the existence of) the writ of habeas corpus, but merely provides that the writ shall not (except in case of rebellion or invasion) be suspended. See R. Fallon, D. Meltzer, & D. Shapiro, Hart & Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System 1369 (4th ed. 1996) (“[T]he text [of the Suspension Clause] does not confer a right to habeas relief, but merely sets forth when the ‘Privilege of the Writ’ may be suspended”). Indeed, that was precisely the objection expressed by four of the state ratifying conventions — that the Constitution failed affirmatively to guarantee a right to habeas corpus. See Collings, Habeas Corpus for Convicts — Constitutional Right or Legislative Grace?, 40 Calif. L. Rev. 335, 340, and nn. 39-41 (1952) (citing 1 J. Elliott, Debates on the Federal Constitution 328 (2d ed. 1836) (New York); 3 id., at 658 (Virginia); 4 id., at 243 (North Carolina); 1 id., at 334 (Rhode Island)).

To “suspend” the writ was not to fail to enact it, much less to refuse to accord it particular content. Noah Webster, in his American Dictionary of the English Language, defined it — with patriotic allusion to the constitutional text— as “[t]o cause to cease for a time from operation or effect; as, to suspend the habeas corpus act.” Vol. 2, p. 86 (1828 ed.). See also N. Bailey, An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1789) (“To Suspend [in Law] signifies a temporal stop of a man’s right”); 2 S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the. English Language 1958 (1773) (“to make to stop for a time”). This was a distinct abuse of majority power, and one that had manifested itself often in the Framers’ experience: temporarily but entirely eliminating the “Privilege of the Writ” for a certain geographic area or areas, or for a certain class *338or classes of individuals. Suspension Acts had been adopted (and many more proposed) both in this country and in England during the late 18th century, see B. Mian, American Habeas Corpus: Law, History, and Politics 109-127 (1984)— including a 7-month suspension by the Massachusetts Assembly during Shay’s Rebellion in 1787, id., at 117. Typical of the genre was the prescription by the Statute of 1794, 34 Geo. 3, c. 54, §2, that “‘[an Act for preventing wrongous imprisonment, and against undue delays in trials], insofar as the same may be construed to relate to the cases of Treason and suspicion of Treason, be suspended [for one year] Mian, supra, at 110. See also 16 Annals of Cong. 44, 402-425 (1852) (recording the debate on a bill, reported to the House of Representatives from the Senate on January 26, 1807, and ultimately rejected, to “suspen[d], for and during the term of three months,” “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus” for “any person or persons, charged on oath with treason, misprision of treason,” and other specified offenses arising out of the Aaron Burr conspiracy).

In the present case, of course, Congress has not temporarily withheld operation of the writ, but has permanently altered its content. That is, to be sure, an act subject to majoritarian abuse, as is Congress’s framing (or its determination not to frame) a habeas statute in the first place. But that is not the majoritarian abuse against which the Suspension Clause was directed. It is no more irrational to guard against the common and well known “suspension” abuse, without guaranteeing any particular habeas right that enjoys immunity from suspension, than it is, in the Equal Protection Clause, to guard against unequal application of the laws, without guaranteeing any particular law which enjoys that protection. And it is no more acceptable for this Court to write a habeas law, in order that the Suspension Clause might have some effect, than it would be for this Court to write other laws, in order that the Equal Protection Clause might have some effect.

*339The Court cites many cases which it says establish that it is a “serious and difficult constitutional issue,” ante, at 305, whether the Suspension Clause prohibits the elimination of habeas jurisdiction effected by IIRIRA. Every one of those cases, however, pertains not to the meaning of the Suspension Clause, but to the content of the habeas corpus provision of the United States Code, which is quite a different matter. The closest the Court can come is a statement in one of those cases to the effect that the Immigration Act of 1917 “had the effect of precluding judicial intervention in deportation cases except insofar as it was required by the Constitution,” Heikkila, 345 U.(S., at 234-235. That statement (1) was pure dictum, since the Court went on to hold that the judicial review of petitioner’s deportation order was unavailable; (2) does not specify to what extent judicial review was “required by the Constitution,” which could (as far as the Court’s holding was concerned) be zero; and, most important of all, (3) does not refer to the Suspension Clause, so could well have had in mind the due process limitations upon the procedures for determining deportability that our later cases establish, see Part III, infra.

There is, however, another Supreme Court dictum that is unquestionably in point — an unusually authoritative one at that, since it was written by Chief Justice Marshall in 1807. It supports precisely the interpretation of the Suspension Clause I have set forth above. In Ex parte Bollman, 4 Cranch 75, one of the cases arising out of the Burr conspiracy, the issue presented was whether the Supreme Court had the power to issue a writ of habeas corpus for the release of two prisoners held for trial under warrant of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia. Counsel for the detainees asserted not only statutory authority for issuance of the writ, but inherent power. See id., at 77-93. The Court would have nothing to do with that, whether under Article III or any other provision. While acknowledging an inherent power of the courts “over their own officers, or *340to protect themselves, and their members, from being disturbed in the exercise of their functions,” Marshall says that “the power of taking cognizance of any question between individuals, or between the government and individuals,”

“must be given by written law.

“The inquiry, therefore, on this motion will be, whether by any statute compatible with the constitution of the United States, the power to award a writ of habeas corpus, in such a case as that of Erick Bollman and Samuel Swartwout, has been given to this court.” Id., at 94.

In the ensuing discussion of the Judiciary Act of 1789, the opinion specifically addresses the Suspension Clause — not invoking it as a source of habeas jurisdiction, but to the contrary pointing out that without legislated habeas jurisdiction the Suspension Clause would have no effect.

“It may be worthy of remark, that this act was passed by the first congress of the United States, sitting under a constitution which had declared ‘that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus should not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety might require it.’

“Acting under the immediate influence of this injunction, they must have felt, with peculiar force, the obligation of providing efficient means by which this great constitutional privilege should receive life and activity; for if the means be not in existence, the privilege itself would be lost, although no law for its suspension should be enacted. Under the impression of this obligation, they give to all the courts the power of awarding writs of habeas corpus” Id., at 95.5

*341There is no more reason for us to believe, than there was for the Marshall Court to believe, that the Suspension Clause means anything other than what it says.

B

Even if one were to assume that the Suspension Clause, despite its text and the Marshall Court’s understanding, guarantees some constitutional minimum of habeas relief, that minimum would assuredly not embrace the rarified right asserted here: the right to judicial compulsion of the exercise of Executive discretion (which may be exercised favorably or unfavorably) regarding a prisoner’s release. If one reads the Suspension Clause as a guarantee of habeas relief, the obvious question presented is: What habeas relief? There are only two alternatives, the first of which is too absurd to be seriously entertained. It could be contended that Congress “suspends” the writ whenever it eliminates any prior ground for the writ that it adopted. Thus, if Congress should ever (in the view of this Court) have authorized immediate habeas corpus — without the need to exhaust administrative remedies — for a person arrested as an illegal alien, Congress would never be able (in the light of sad experience) to revise that disposition. The Suspen*342sion Clause, in other words, would be a one-way ratchet that enshrines in the Constitution every grant of habeas jurisdiction. This is, as I say, too absurd to be contemplated, and I shall contemplate it no further.

The other alternative is that the Suspension Clause guarantees the common-law right of habeas corpus, as it was understood when the Constitution was ratified. There is no doubt whatever that this did not include the right to obtain discretionary release. The Court notes with apparent credulity respondent’s contention “that there is historical evidence of the writ issuing to redress the improper exercise of official discretion,” ante, at 303-304. The only framing-era or earlier cases it alludes to in support of that contention, see ante, at 303, n. 23, referred to ante, at 303-304, establish no such thing. In Ex parte Boggin, 13 East 549, 104 Eng. Rep. 484 (K. B. 1811), the court did not even bother calling for a response from the custodian, where the applicant failed to show that he was statutorily exempt from impressment under any statute then in force. In Chalacombe’s Case, reported in a footnote in Ex parte Boggin, the court did “let the writ go” — i. e., called for a response from the Admiralty to Chalacombe’s petition — even though counsel for the Admiralty had argued that the Admiralty’s general policy of not impressing “seafaring persons of [Chalacombe’s] description” was “a matter of grace and favour, [and not] of right.” But the court never decided that it had authority to grant the relief requested (since the Admiralty promptly discharged Chalacombe of its own accord); in fact, it expressed doubt whether it had that authority. See 13 East, at 550, n. (b), 104 Eng. Rep., at 484, n. (a)2 (Lord Ellenborough, C. J.) (“[Considering it merely as a question of discretion, is it not more fit that this should stand over for the consideration of the Admiralty, to whom the matter ought to be disclosed?”). And in Hollingshead’s Case, 1 Salkeld 351, 91 Eng. Rep. 307 (K. B. 1702), the “warrant of commitment” issued by the “commissioners of bankrupt” was “held naught,” since it au*343thorized the bankrupt’s continued detention by the commissioners until “otherwise discharged by due course of law,” whereas the statute authorized commitment only “till [the bankrupt] submit himself to be examined by the commissioners.” (Emphasis deleted.) There is nothing pertaining to executive discretion here.

All the other framing-era or earlier cases cited in the Court’s opinion — indeed, all the later Supreme Court cases until United States ex rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 347 U. S. 260, in 1954 — provide habeas relief from executive detention only when the custodian had no legal authority to detain. See 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1333, p. 206 (1833) (the writ lies to ascertain whether a “sufficient ground of detention appears”). The fact is that, far from forming a traditional basis for issuance of the writ of habeas corpus, the whole “concept of ‘discretion’ was not well developed at common law,” Hafetz, The Untold Story of Noncriminal Habeas Corpus and the 1996 Immigration Acts, 107 Yale L. J. 2509, 2534 (1998), quoted in Brief for Respondent in Calcano-Martinez v. INS, O. T. 2000, No. 00-1011, p. 37. An exhaustive search of cases antedating the Suspension Clause discloses few instances in which courts even discussed the concept of executive discretion; and on the rare occasions when they did, they simply confirmed what seems obvious from the paucity of such discussions — namely, that courts understood executive discretion as lying entirely beyond the judicial ken. See, e. g., Chalacombe’s Case, supra, at 342. That is precisely what one would expect, since even the executive’s evaluation of the facts — a duty that was a good deal more than discretionary — was not subject to review on habeas. Both in this country, until passage of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1867, and in England, the longstanding rule had been that the truth of the custodian’s return could not be controverted. See, e. g., Opinion on the Writ of Habeas Corpus, Wilm. 77, 107, 97 Eng. Rep. 29, 43 (H. L. 1758); Note, Developments in *344the Law — Federal Habeas Corpus, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 1038, 1113-1114, and nn. 9-11 (1970) (quoting Act of Feb. 5, 1867, ch. 28, § 1, 14 Stat. .385); Oaks, Legal History in the High Court — Habeas Corpus, 64 Mich. L. Rev. 451, 453 (1966). And, of course, going beyond inquiry into the legal authority of the executive to detain would have been utterly incompatible with the well-established limitation upon habeas relief for a convicted prisoner: “[0]nce a person had been convicted by a superior court of general jurisdiction, a court disposing of a habeas corpus petition could not go behind the conviction for any purpose other than to verify the formal jurisdiction of the committing court.” Id., at 468, quoted in Swain v. Pressley, 430 U. S. 372, 384-385 (1977) (Burger, C. J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).

In sum, there is no authority whatever for the proposition that, at the time the Suspension Clause was ratified — or, for that matter, even for a century and a half thereafter — habeas corpus relief was available to compel the Executive’s allegedly wrongful refusal to exercise discretion. The striking proof of that proposition is that when, in 1954, the Warren Court held that the Attorney General’s alleged refusal to exercise his discretion under the Immigration Act of 1917 could be reviewed on habeas, see United States ex rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, supra, it did so without citation of any supporting authority, and over the dissent of Justice Jackson, joined by three other Justices, who wrote:

“Of course, it may be thought that it would be better government if even executive acts of grace were subject to judicial review. But the process of the Court seems adapted only to the determination of legal rights, and here the decision is thrusting upon the courts the task of reviewing a discretionary and purely executive function. Habeas corpus, like the currency, can be debased by over-issue quite as certainly as by too niggardly use. We would ... leave the responsibility for suspension or *345execution of this deportation squarely on the Attorney General, where Congress has put it.” Id., at 271.

III

Given the insubstantiality of the due process and Article III arguments against barring judicial review of respondent’s claim (the Court does not even bother to mention them, and the Court of Appeals barely acknowledges them), I will address them only briefly.

The Due Process Clause does not “[r]equir[e] [jjudicial [determination [o]f ” respondent’s claim, Brief for Petitioners in Calcano-Martinez v. INS, O. T. 2000, No. 00-1011, p. 34. Respondent has no legal entitlement to suspension of deportation, no matter how appealing his case. “[T]he Attorney General’s suspension of deportation [is] “an act of grace” which is accorded pursuant to her ‘unfettered discretion,’ Jay v. Boyd, 351 U. S. 345,354 (1956)..., and [can be likened, as Judge Learned Hand observed,] to “a judge’s power to suspend the execution of a sentence, or the President’s to pardon a convict,” 351 U. S., at 354, n. 16 . . . .” INS v. Yueh-Shaio Yang, 519 U. S. 26, 30 (1996). The furthest our cases have gone in imposing due process requirements upon analogous exercises of Executive discretion is the following. (1) We have required “minimal procedural safeguards” for death-penalty clemency proceedings, to prevent them from becoming so capricious as to involve “a state official flipp[ing] a coin to determine whether to grant clemency,” Ohio Adult Parole Authority v. Woodard, 523 U. S. 272, 289 (1998) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Even assuming that this holding is not part of our “death-is-different” jurisprudence, Shafer v. South Carolina, 532 U. S. 36, 55 (2001) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (citation omitted), respondent here is not complaining about the absence of procedural safeguards; he disagrees with the Attorney General’s judgment on a point of law. (2) We have recognized the existence of a due process liberty interest when *346a State’s statutory parole procedures prescribe that a prisoner “shall” be paroled if certain conditions are satisfied, see Board of Pardons v. Allen, 482 U. S. 369, 370-371, 381 (1987); Greenholtz v. Inmates of Neb. Penal and Correctional Complex, 442 U. S. 1, 12 (1979). There is no such statutory entitlement to suspension of deportation, no matter what the facts. Moreover, in neither Woodard, nor Allen, nor Greenholtz did we intimate that the Due Process Clause conferred jurisdiction of its own force, without benefit of statutory authorization. All three cases were brought under 42 U. S. C. § 1983.

Article III, § l’s investment of the “judicial Power of the United States” in the federal courts does not prevent Congress from committing the adjudication of respondent’s legal claim wholly to “non-Article III federal adjudicative bodies,” Brief for Petitioners in Calcano-Martinez v. INS, O. T. 2000, No. 00-1011, at 38. The notion that Article III requires every Executive determination, on a question of law or of fact, to be subject to judicial review has no support in our jurisprudence. Were it correct, the doctrine of sovereign immunity would not exist, and the APA’s general permission of suits challenging administrative action, see 5 U. S. C. § 702, would have been superfluous. Of its own force, Article III does no more than commit to the courts matters that are “the stuff of the traditional actions at common law tried by the courts at Westminster in 1789,” Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U. S. 50, 90 (1982) (Rehnquist, J., concurring in judgment) — which (as I have discussed earlier) did not include supervision of discretionary Executive action.

* * *

The Court has created a version of IIRIRA that is not only unrecognizable to its framers (or to anyone who can read) but gives the statutory scheme precisely the opposite of its intended effect, affording criminal aliens more opportu*347nities for delay-inducing judicial review than others have, or even than criminal aliens had prior to the enactment of this legislation. Because § 2241’s exclusion of judicial review is unmistakably clear, and unquestionably constitutional, both this Court and the courts below were without power to entertain respondent’s claims. I would set aside the judgment of the court below and remand with instructions to have the District Court dismiss for want of jurisdiction. I respectfully dissent from the judgment of the Court.

Justice Ginsburg

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Panagis Vartelas, a native of Greece, became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 1989. He pleaded guilty to a felony (conspiring to make a counterfeit security) in 1994, and served a prison sentence of four months for that offense. Vartelas traveled to Greece in 2003 to visit his parents. On his return to the United States a week later, he was treated as an inadmissible alien and placed in removal proceedings. Under the law governing at the time of Var-telas’ plea, an alien in his situation could travel abroad for brief periods without jeopardizing his resident alien status. See 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(13) (1988 ed.), as construed in Rosenberg v. Fleuti, 374 U. S. 449 (1963).

In 1996, Congress enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), 110 Stat. 3009-546. That Act effectively precluded foreign travel by lawful permanent residents who had a conviction like Vartelas’. Under IIRIRA, such aliens, on return from a sojourn abroad, however brief, may be permanently removed from the United States. See 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v); § 1182(a)(2).

*261This case presents a question of retroactivity not addressed by Congress: As to a lawful permanent resident convicted of a crime before the effective date of IIRIRA, which regime governs, the one in force at the time of the conviction, or IIRIRA? If the former, Vartelas’ brief trip abroad would not disturb his lawful permanent resident status. If the latter, he may be denied reentry. We conclude that the relevant provision of IIRIRA, § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v), attached a new disability (denial of reentry) in respect to past events (Vartelas’ pre-IIRIRA offense, plea, and conviction). Guided by the deeply rooted presumption against retroactive legislation, we hold that § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) does not apply to Vartelas’ conviction. The impact of Vartelas’ brief travel abroad on his permanent resident status is therefore determined not by IIRIRA, but by the legal regime in force at the time of his conviction.

I

A

Before IIRIRA’s passage, United States immigration law established “two types of proceedings in which aliens can be denied the hospitality of the United States: deportation hearings and exclusion hearings.” Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U. S. 21, 25 (1982). Exclusion hearings were held for certain aliens seeking entry to the United States, and deportation hearings were held for certain aliens who had already entered this country. See ibid.

Under this regime, “entry” into the United States was defined as “any coming of an alien into the United States, from a foreign port or place.” 8 U. S. C. §1101(a)(13) (1988 ed.). The statute, however, provided an exception for lawful permanent residents; aliens lawfully residing here were not regarded as making an “entry” if their “departure to a foreign port or place . . . was not intended or reasonably to be expected by [them] or [their] presence in a foreign port or place . . . was not voluntary.” Ibid. Interpreting this cryptic *262provision, we held in Fleuti, 374 U. S., at 461-462, that Congress did not intend to exclude aliens long resident in the United States upon their return from “innocent, casual, and brief exeursion[s] . < . outside this country’s borders.” Instead, the Court determined, Congress meant to rank a once-permanent resident as a new entrant only when the foreign excursion “meaningfully interrupted] . . . the alien’s [U. SJ residence.” Id., at 462. Absent such “disruption]” of the alien’s residency, the alien would not be “subject ... to the consequences of an ‘entry’ into the country on his return.” Ibid. 1

In IIRIRA, Congress abolished the distinction between exclusion and deportation procedures and created a uniform proceeding known as “removal.” See 8 U. S. C. §§ 1229, 1229a; Judulang v. Holder, 565 U. S. 42, 46 (2011). Congress made “admission” the key word, and defined admission to mean “the lawful entry of the alien into the United States after inspection and authorization by an immigration officer.” § 1101(a)(13)(A). This alteration, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) determined, superseded Fleuti. See In re Collado-Munoz, 21 I. & N. Dec. 1061, 1065-1066 (1998) (en banc).2 Thus, lawful permanent residents returning post-IIRIRA, like Vartelas, may be required to “ ‘see[k] an admis*263sion’ into the United States, without regard to whether the alien’s departure from the United States might previously have been regarded as ‘brief, casual, and innocent’ under the Fleuti doctrine.” Id., at 1066.

An alien seeking “admission” to the United States is subject to various requirements, see, e. g., § 1181(a), and cannot gain entry if she is deemed “inadmissible” on any of the numerous grounds set out in the immigration statutes, see § 1182. Under IIRIRA, lawful permanent residents are regarded as seeking admission into the United States if they fall into any of six enumerated categories. § 1101(a)(13)(C). Relevant here, the fifth of these categories covers aliens who “ha[ve] committed an offense identified in section 1182(a)(2) of this title.” § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v). Offenses in this category include “a crime involving moral turpitude (other than a purely political offense) or an attempt or conspiracy to commit such a crime.” § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i).

In sum, before IIRIRA, lawful permanent residents who had committed a crime of moral turpitude could, under the Fleuti doctrine, return from brief trips abroad without applying for admission to the United States. Under IIRIRA, such residents are subject to admission procedures, and, potentially, to removal from the United States on grounds of inadmissibility.3

B

Panagis Vartelas, born and raised in Greece, has resided in the United States for over 30 years. Originally admitted *264on a student visa issued in 1979, Vartelas became a lawful permanent resident in 1989' He currently lives in the New York area and works as a sales manager for a roofing company.

In 1992, Vartelas opened an auto body shop in Queens, New York. One of his business partners used the shop’s photocopier to make counterfeit travelers’ checks. Vartelas helped his partner perforate the sheets into individual checks, but Vartelas did not sell the checks or receive any money from the venture. In 1994, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to make or possess counterfeit securities, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 871. He was sentenced to four months’ incarceration, followed by two years’ supervised release.

Vartelas regularly traveled to Greece to visit his aging parents in the years after his 1994 conviction; even after the passage of IIRIRA in 1996, his return to the United States from these visits remained uneventful. In January 2003, however, when Vartelas returned from a week-long trip to Greece, an immigration officer classified him as an alien seeking “admission.” The officer based this classification on Vartelas’ 1994 conviction. See United States ex rel. Volpe v. Smith, 289 U. S. 422, 423 (1933) (counterfeiting ranks as a crime of moral turpitude).

At Vartelas’ removal proceedings, his initial attorney conceded removability, and requested discretionary relief from removal under the former § 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. See 8 U. S. C. § 1182(c) (1994 ed.) (repealed 1996). This attorney twice failed to appear for hearings and once failed to submit a requested brief. Vartelas engaged a new attorney, who continued to concede removability and to request discretionary relief. The Immigration Judge denied the request for relief, and ordered Vartelas removed to Greece. The BIA affirmed the Immigration Judge’s decision.

In July 2008, Vartelas filed with the BIA a timely motion to reopen the removal proceedings, alleging that his previous *265attorneys were ineffective for, among other lapses, conceding his removability. He sought to withdraw the concession of removability on the ground that IIRIRA’s new “admission” provision, codified at § 1101.(a)(13), did not reach back to deprive him of lawful resident status based on his pre-IIRIRA conviction. The BIA denied the motion, declaring that Var-íelas had not been prejudiced by his lawyers’ performance, for no legal authority prevented the application of IIRIRA to Varíelas’ pre-IIRIRA conduct.

The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the BIA’s decision, agreeing that Varíelas had failed to show he was prejudiced by his attorneys’ allegedly ineffective performance. Rejecting Varíelas’ argument that IIRIRA operated prospectively and therefore did not govern his case, the Second Circuit reasoned that he had not relied on the prior legal regime at the time he committed the disqualifying crime. See 620 F. 3d 108, 118-120 (2010).

In so ruling, the Second Circuit created a split with two other Circuits. The Fourth and Ninth Circuits have held that the new § 1101(a)(13) may not be applied to lawful permanent residents who committed crimes listed in §1182 (among them, crimes of moral turpitude) prior to IIRIRA’s enactment. See Olatunji v. Ashcroft, 387 F. 3d 383 (CA4 2004); Camins v. Gonzales, 500 F. 3d 872 (CA9 2007). We granted certiorari, 564 U. S. 1066 (2011), to resolve the conflict among the Circuits.

II

As earlier explained, see supra, at 261-263, pre-IIRIRA, a resident alien who once committed a crime of moral turpitude could travel abroad for short durations without jeopardizing his status as a lawful permanent resident. Under IIRIRA, on return from foreign travel, such an alien is treated as a new arrival to our shores, and may be removed from the United States. Varíelas does not question Congress’ authority to restrict reentry in this manner. Nor does he contend that Congress could not do so retroactively. Instead, *266he invokes the principle against retroactive legislation, under which courts read laws as prospective in application unless Congress has unambiguously instructed retroactivity. See Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244, 263 (1994).

The presumption against retroactive legislation, the Court recalled in Landgraf, “embodies a legal doctrine centuries older than our Republic.” Id., at 265. Several provisions, of the Constitution, the Court noted, embrace the doctrine, among them, the Ex Post Facto Clause, the Contract Clause, and the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Id., at 266. Numerous decisions of this Court repeat the classic formulation Justice Story penned for determining when retrospective application of a law would collide with the doctrine. It would do so, Story stated, when such application would “tak[e] away or impai[r] vested rights acquired under existing laws, or creatfe] a new obligation, imposte] a new duty, or attac[h] a new disability, in respect to transactions or considerations already past.” Society for Propagation of Gospel v. Wheeler, 22 F. Cas. 756, 767 (No. 13,156) (CC NH 1814). See, e. g., INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U. S. 289, 321 (2001) (invoking Story’s formulation); Hughes Aircraft Co. v. United States ex rel. Schumer, 520 U. S. 939, 947 (1997); Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 283.4

Vartelas urges that applying IIRIRA to him, rather than the law that existed at the time of his conviction, would attach a “new disability,” effectively a ban on travel outside the United States, “in respect to [events] . . . already past,” i. e., his offense, guilty plea, conviction, and punishment, all occurring prior to the passage of IIRIRA. In evaluating Vartelas’ argument, we note first a matter not disputed by *267the Government: Congress did not expressly prescribe the temporal reach of the IIRIRA provision in question, 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(13). See Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 280 (Court asks first “whether Congress has expressly prescribed [new § 1101(a)(13)’s] proper reach”); Brief for Respondent 11 (Court’s holding in INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U. S., at 317-320, “compels the conclusion that Congress has not ‘expressly prescribed the statute’s proper reach’ ” (quoting Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 280)).5 Several other provisions of IIRIRA, in contrast to § 1101(a)(13), expressly direct retroactive application, e. g., § 1101(a)(43) (IIRIRA’s amendment of the “aggravated felony” definition applies expressly to “conviction[s]... entered before, on, or after” the statute’s enactment date (internal quotation marks omitted)). See St. Cyr, 533 U. S., at 319-320, and n. 43 (setting out further examples). Accordingly, we proceed to the dispositive question whether, as Vartelas maintains, application of IIRIRA’s travel restraint to him “would have retroactive effect” Congress did not authorize. See Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 280.

Vartelas presents a firm ease for application of the antiret-roactivity principle. Neither his sentence, nor the immigration law in effect when he was convicted and sentenced, blocked him from occasional visits to his parents in Greece. Current § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v), if applied to him, would thus attach “a new disability” to conduct over and done well before the provision’s enactment.

Beyond genuine doubt, we note, the restraint § 1101(a) (13)(C)(v) places on lawful permanent residents like Vartelas ranks as a “new disability.” Once able to journey abroad to fulfill religious obligations, attend funerals and weddings of family members, tend to vital financial interests, or respond to family emergencies, permanent residents situated as Var-telas is now face potential banishment. We have several *268times recognized the severity of that sanction. See, e.g., Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U. S. 356, 365-366, 373-374 (2010).

It is no answer to say, as the Government suggests, that Vartelas could have avoided any adverse consequences if he simply stayed at home in the United States, his residence for 24 years prior to his 2003 visit'to his parents in Greece. See Brief in Opposition 13 (Vartelas “could have avoided the application of the statute . . . [by] refraining] from departing from the United States (or from returning to the United States).”); post, at 278. Loss of the ability to travel abroad is itself a harsh penalty,6 made all the more devastating if it means enduring separation from close family members living abroad. See Brief for Asian American Justice Center et al. as Amici Curiae 16-23 (describing illustrative cases). We have rejected arguments for retroactivity in similar cases, and in cases in which the loss at stake was less momentous.

In Chew Heong v. United States, 112 U. S. 536 (1884), a pathmarking decision, the Court confronted the “Chinese Restriction Act,” which barred Chinese laborers from reentering the United States without a certificate issued on their departure. The Court held the reentry bar inapplicable to aliens who had left the country prior to the Act’s passage and tried to return afterward without a certificate. The Act’s text, the Court observed, was not “so clear and positive as to leave no room to doubt [retroactive application] was the intention of the legislature.” Id., at 559.

In Landgraf, the question was whether an amendment to Title VII’s ban on employment discrimination authorizing *269compensatory and punitive damages applied to preenactment conduct. The Court held it did not. No doubt the complaint against the employer charged discrimination that violated the Act at the time it occurred. But compensatory and punitive damages were not then available remedies. The later provision for such damages, the Court determined, operated prospectively only, and did not apply to employers whose discriminatory conduct occurred prior to the amendment. See 511 U. S., at 280-286. And in Hughes Aircraft, the Court held that a provision removing an affirmative defense to qui tam suits did not apply to preenactment fraud. As in Landgraf, the provision attached “a new disability” to past wrongful conduct and therefore could not apply retrospectively unless Congress clearly manifested such an intention. Hughes Aircraft, 520 U. S., at 946-950.

Most recently, in St. Cyr, the Court took up the case of an alien who had entered a plea to a deportable offense. At the time of the plea, the alien was eligible for discretionary relief from deportation. IIRIRA, enacted after entry of the plea, removed that eligibility. The Court held that the IIRIRA provision in point could not be applied to the alien, for it attached a “new disability” to the guilty plea and Congress had not instructed such a result. 533 U. S., at 321-323.

HH 1 — I ⅜ — l

The Government, echoed in part by the dissent, argues that no retroactive effect is involved in this case, for the Legislature has not attached any disability to past conduct. Rather, it has made the relevant event the alien’s post-IIRIRA act of returning to the United States. See Brief for Respondent 19-20; post, at 278. We find this argument disingenuous. Vartelas’ return to the United States occasioned his treatment as a new entrant, but the reason for the “new disability” imposed on him was not his lawful foreign travel. It was, indeed, his conviction, pre-IIRIRA, of an offense qualifying as one of moral turpitude. That past mis*270conduct, in other words, not present travel, is the wrongful activity Congress targeted in § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v).

The Government observes that lower courts have upheld Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act prosecutions that encompassed preenactment conduct. See Brief for Respondent 18 (citing United States v. Brown, 555 F. 2d 407, 416-417 (CA5 1977), and United States v. Campanale, 518 F. 2d 352, 364-365 (CA9 1975) (per curiam)). But those prosecutions depended on criminal activity, i. e., an act of racketeering occurring after the provision’s effective date. Section 1101(a)(13)(C)(v), in contrast, does not require any showing of criminal conduct postdating IIRIRA’s enactment.

Fernandez-Vargas v. Gonzales, 548 U. S. 30 (2006), featured by the Government and the dissent, Brief for Respondent 17, 36 — 37; post, at 278, is similarly inapposite. That case involved 8 U. S. C. § 1231(a)(5), an IIRIRA addition, which provides that an alien who reenters the United States after having been removed can be removed again under the same removal order. We held that the provision could be applied to an alien who reentered illegally before IIRIRA’s enactment. Explaining the Court’s decision, we said: “[T]he conduct of remaining in the country ... is the predicate action; the statute applies to stop an indefinitely continuing violation .... It is therefore the alien’s choice to continue his illegal presence . . . after the effective date of the new la[w] that subjects him to the new ... legal regime, not a past act that he is helpless to undo.” 548 U. S., at 44 (emphasis added). Vartelas, we have several times stressed, engaged in no criminal activity after IIRIRA’s passage. He simply took a brief trip to Greece, anticipating a return without incident as in past visits to his parents. No “indefinitely continuing” crime occurred; instead, Vartelas was apprehended because of a pre-IIRIRA crime he was “helpless to undo.” Ibid.

The Government further refers to lower court decisions in cases involving 18 U. S. C. § 922(g), which prohibits the *271possession of firearms by convicted felons. Brief for Respondent 18-19 (citing United States v. Pfeifer, 371 F. 3d 430, 436 (CA8 2004), and United States v. Hemmings, 258 F. 3d 587, 594 (CA7 2001)). “[longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons,” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 626 (2008), however, target a present danger, i. e., the danger posed by felons who bear arms. See, e. g., Pfeifer, 371 F. 3d, at 436 (hazardous conduct that statute targets “occurred after enactment of the statute”); Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, § 1201, 82 Stat. 236 (noting hazards involved when felons possess firearms).7

Nor do recidivism sentencing enhancements support the Government’s position. Enhanced punishment imposed for the later offense “ ‘is not to be viewed as . . . [an] additional penalty for the earlier crimes,’ but instead, as a ‘stiffened penalty for the latest crime, which is considered to be an *272aggravated offense because [it is] a repetitive one.’” Witte v. United States, 515 U. S. 389, 400 (1995) (quoting Gryger v. Burke, 334 U. S. 728, 732 (1948)). In Vartelas’ case, however, there is no “aggravated ... repetitive” offense. There is, in contrast, no post-IIRIRA criminal offense at all. Var-telas’ travel abroad and return are “innocent” acts, see Fleuti, 374 U. S., at 462, burdened only because of his pre-IIRIRA offense.

In sum, Vartelas’ brief trip abroad post-IIRIRA involved no criminal infraction. IIRIRA disabled him from leaving the United States and returning as a lawful permanent resident. That new disability rested not on any continuing criminal activity, but on a single crime committed years before IIRIRA’s enactment. The antiretroactivity principle instructs against application of the new proscription to render Vartelas a first-time arrival at the country’s gateway.

IV

The Second Circuit homed in on the words “committed an offense” in § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) in determining that the change IIRIRA wrought had no retroactive effect. 620 F. 3d, at 119-121. It matters not that Vartelas may have relied on the prospect of continuing visits to Greece in deciding to plead guilty, the court reasoned. “[I]t would border on the absurd,” the court observed, “to suggest that Vartelas committed his counterfeiting crime in reliance on the immigration laws.” Id., at 120. This reasoning is doubly flawed.

As the Government acknowledges, “th[is] Court has not required a party challenging the application of a statute to show [he relied on prior law] in structuring his conduct.” Brief for Respondent 25-26. In Landgraf, for example, the issue was the retroactivity of compensatory and punitive damages as remedies for employment discrimination. “[C]oncerns of . . . upsetting expectations are attenuated in the case of intentional employment discrimination,” the Court noted, for such discrimination “has been unlawful for *273more than a generation.” 511 U. S., at 282, n. 35. But “[e]ven when the conduct in question is morally reprehensible or illegal,” the Court added, “a degree of unfairness is inherent whenever the law imposes additional burdens based On conduct that occurred in the past.” Id., at 283, n. 35. And in Hughes Aircraft, the Court found that Congress’ 1986 removal of a defense to a qui tam action did not apply to pre-1986 conduct in light of the presumption against retroac-tivity. 520 U. S., at 941-942.8 As in Landgraf, the relevant conduct (submitting a false claim) had been unlawful for decades. See 520 U. S., at 947.

The operative presumption, after all, is that Congress intends its laws to govern prospectively only. See supra, at 265-266. “It is a strange ‘presumption,’ ” the Third Circuit commented, “that arises only on ... a showing [of] actual reliance.” Ponnapula v. Ashcroft, 373 F. 3d 480, 491 (2004). The essential inquiry, as stated in Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 269-270, is “whether the new provision attaches new legal consequences to events completed before its enactment.” That is just what occurred here.

In any event, Vartelas likely relied on then-existing immigration law. While the presumption against retroactive application of statutes does not require a showing of detrimental reliance, see Olatunji, 387 F. 3d, at 389-395, reasonable reliance has been noted among the “familiar considerations” animating the presumption, see Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 270 (presumption reflects “familiar considerations of fair notice, reasonable reliance, and settled expectations”). Although not a necessary predicate for invoking the antiretroactivity *274principle, the likelihood of reliance on prior .law strengthens the case for reading a newly enacted law prospectively. See Olatunji, 387 F. 3d, at 393 (discussing St. Cyr).

St. Cyr is illustrative. That case involved a lawful permanent resident who pleaded guilty to a criminal charge that made him deportable. Under the immigration law in effect when he was convicted, he would have been eligible to apply for a waiver of deportation. But his removal proceeding was commenced after Congress, in IIRIRA, withdrew that dispensation. Disallowance of discretionary waivers, the Court recognized, “attache[d] a new disability, in respect to transactions or considerations already past.” 533 U. S., at 321 (internal quotation marks omitted). Aliens like St. Cyr, the Court observed, “almost certainly relied upon th[e] likelihood [of receiving discretionary relief] in deciding [to plead guilty, thereby] forgo[ing] their right to a trial.” Id., at 325.9 Hence, applying the IIRIRA withdrawal to St. Cyr would have an “obvious and severe retroactive effect.” Ibid. Because Congress made no such intention plain, ibid., n. 55, we held that the prior law, permitting relief from deportation, governed St. Cyr’s ease.

As to retroactivity, one might think Vartelas’ case even easier than St. Cyr’s. St. Cyr could seek the Attorney General’s discretionary dispensation. Vartelas, under Fleuti, was free, without seeking an official’s permission, to make trips of short duration to see and assist his parents in *275Greece.10 The Second Circuit thought otherwise, compounding its initial misperception (treating reliance as essential to application of the antiretroactivity principle). The deportation provision involved in St Cyr, 8 U. S. C. § 1229b(a)(3), referred to the alien’s “convict[ion]” of a crime, while the statutory words sub judice in Vartelas’ case were “committed an offense,” § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v); see supra, at 272.11 The practical difference, so far as retroactivity is concerned, escapes from our grasp. Ordinarily, to determine whether there is clear and convincing evidence that an alien has committed a qualifying crime, the immigration officer at the border would check the alien’s records for a conviction. He would not call into session a piepowder court12 to entertain a plea or conduct a trial.

Satisfied that Vartelas’ case is at least as clear as St. Cyr’s for declining to apply a new law retroactively, we hold that Fleuti continues to govern Vartelas’ short-term travel.

*276* * *

For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Scalia,

with whom Justice Thomas and Justice Alito join, dissenting.

As part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), Congress required that lawful permanent residents who have committed certain crimes seek formal “admission” when they return to the United States from abroad. 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v). This case presents a straightforward question of statutory interpretation: Does that statute apply to lawful permanent residents who, like Vartelas, committed one of the specified offenses before 1996, but traveled abroad after 1996? Under the proper approach to determining a statute’s temporal application, the answer is yes.

>-H

The text of §1101(a)(13)(C)(v) does not contain a clear statement answering the question presented here. So the Court is correct that this case is governed by our longstanding interpretive principle that, in the absence of a contrary indication, a statute will not be construed to have retroactive application. See, e. g., Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244, 280 (1994). The operative provision of this text— the provision that specifies the act that it prohibits or prescribes — says that lawful permanent residents convicted of offenses similar to Vartelas’s must seek formal “admission” before they return to the United States from abroad. Since Vartelas returned to the United States after the statute’s effective date, the application of that text to his reentry does not give the statute a retroactive effect.

*277In determining whether a statute applies retroactively, we should concern ourselves with the statute’s actual operation on regulated parties, not with retroactivity as an abstract concept or as a substitute for fairness concerns. It is impossible to decide whether a statute’s application is retrospective or prospective without first identifying a reference point — a moment in time to which the statute’s effective date is either subsequent or antecedent. (Otherwise, the obvious question — retroactive in reference to what? — remains unanswered.) In my view, the identity of that reference point turns on the activity a statute is intended to regulate. For any given regulated party, the reference point (or “retroac-tivity event”) is the moment at which the party does what the statute forbids or fails to do what it requires. See Martin v. Hadix, 527 U. S. 343, 362-363 (1999) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Landgraf, supra, at 291 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgments). With an identified reference point, the retroactivity analysis is simple. If a person has engaged in the primary regulated activity before the statute’s effective date, then the statute’s application would be retroactive. But if a person engages in the primary regulated activity after the statute’s effective date, then the statute’s application is prospective only. In the latter case, the interpretive presumption against retroac-tivity does not bar the statute’s application.

Under that commonsense approach, this is a relatively easy case. Although the class of aliens affected by § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) is defined with respect to past crimes, the regulated activity is reentry into the United States. By its terms, the statute is all about controlling admission at the border. It specifies six criteria to identify lawful permanent residents who are subject to formal “admission” procedures, most of which relate to the circumstances of departure, the trip itself, or reentry. The titles of the statutory sections containing § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) confirm its focus on admission, rather than crime: The provision is located within Title III *278of IIRIRA (“Inspection, Apprehension, Detention, Adjudication, and Removal of Inadmissible and Deportable Aliens”), under Subtitle A (“Revision of Procedures for Removal of Aliens”), and § 301 (“Treating Persons Present in the United States Without Authorization as Not Admitted”). 110 Stat. 3009-575. And the specific subsection of IIRIRA at issue (§ 301(a), entitled “ Admission’ Defined”) is an amendment to the definition of “entry” in the general “Definitions” section of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). See ante, at 261-262. The original provision told border officials how to regulate admission — not how to punish crime — and the amendment does as well.

Section 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) thus has no retroactive effect on Vartelas because the reference point here — Vartelas’s readmission to the United States after a trip abroad — occurred years after the statute’s effective date. Although Vartelas cannot change the fact of his prior conviction, he could have avoided entirely the consequences of § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) by simply remaining in the United States or, having left, remaining in Greece. That § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) had no effect on Vartelas until he performed a postenactment activity is a clear indication that the statute’s application is purely prospective. See Fernandez-Vargas v. Gonzales, 548 U. S. 30, 45, n. 11, 46 (2006) (no retroactive effect where the statute in question did “not operate on a completed preenactment act” and instead turned on “a failure to take timely action that would have avoided application of the new law altogether”).

II

The Court avoids this conclusion by insisting that “past misconduct, . . . not present travel, is the wrongful activity Congress targeted” in § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v). Ante, at 269-270. That assertion does not, however, have any basis in the statute’s text or structure, and the Court does not pretend otherwise. Instead, the Court simply asserts that Vartelas’s “lawful foreign travel” surely could not be the “reason for *279the ‘new disability’ imposed on him.” Ante, at 269. But the reason for a prohibition has nothing to do with whether the prohibition is being applied to a past rather than a future act. It may be relevant to other legal inquiries — for example, to whether a legislative act violates one of the Ex Post Facto Clauses in Article I, see, e. g., Smith v. Doe, 538 U. S. 84, 92 (2003), or one of the Due Process Clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, see, e. g., Williamson v. Lee Optical of Okla., Inc., 348 U. S. 483, 487 (1955), or the Takings Clause in the Fifth Amendment, see, e. g., Kelo v. New London, 545 U. S. 469, 477-483 (2005), or the Obligation of Contracts Clause in Article I, see, e. g., United States Trust Co. of N. Y. v. New Jersey, 431 U. S. 1, 29 (1977). But it has no direct bearing upon whether the statute is retroactive.*

The Court’s failure to differentiate between the statutory-interpretation question (whether giving certain effect ,to a provision would make it retroactive and hence presumptively unintended) and the validity question (whether giving certain effect to a provision is unlawful) is on full display in its attempts to distinguish § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) from similar statutes. Take, for example, the Court’s discussion of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). That Act, which targets “patterns of racketeering,” expressly defines those “patterns” to include some preenactment conduct. See 18 U. S. C. § 1961(5). Courts interpreting RICO therefore need not consider the presumption against retroactivity; instead, the cases cited by the majority *280consider whether RICO violates the Ex Post Facto Clause. See United States v. Brown, 555 F. 2d 407, 416-417 (CA5 1977); United States v. Campanale, 518 F. 2d 352, 364-365 (CA9 1975) (per curiam). The Government recognized this distinction and cited RICO to make a point about the Ex Post Facto Clause rather than the presumption against ret-roactivity, Brief for Respondent 17-18; the Court evidently does not.

The Court’s confident assertion that Congress surely would not have meant this statute to apply to Vartelas, whose foreign travel and subsequent return to the United States were innocent events, ante, at 269-270, 272, simply begs the question presented in this case. Ignorance, of course, is no excuse (ignorantia legis neminem excusat); and his return was entirely lawful only if the statute before us did not render it unlawful. Since IIRIRA’s effective date in 1996, lawful permanent residents who have committed crimes of moral turpitude are forbidden to leave the United States and return without formally seeking “admission.” See § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v). As a result, Vartelas’s numerous trips abroad and “uneventful” reentries into the United States after the passage of IIRIRA, see ante, at 264, were lawful only if § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) does not apply to him— which is, of course, precisely the matter in dispute here.

The Court’s circular reasoning betrays its underlying concern: Because the Court believes that reentry after a brief trip abroad should be lawful, it will decline to apply a statute that clearly provides otherwise for certain criminal aliens. (The same instinct likely produced the Court’s questionable statutory interpretation in Rosenberg v. Fleuti, 374 U. S. 449 (1963).) The Court’s test for retroactivity — asking whether the statute creates a “new disability” in “respect to past events” — invites this focus on fairness. Understandably so, since it is derived from a Justice Story opinion interpreting a provision of the New Hampshire Constitution that forbade retroactive laws — a provision comparable to the Federal *281Constitution’s ex post facto prohibition and bearing no relation to the presumption against retroactivity. What is unfair or irrational (and hence should be forbidden) has nothing to do with whether applying a statute to a particular act is prospective (and thus presumptively intended) or retroactive (and thus presumptively unintended). On the latter question, the “new disability in respect to past events” test provides no meaningful guidance.

I can imagine countless laws that, like § 1101(a)(18)(C)(v), impose “new disabilities” related to “past events” and' yet do not operate retroactively. For example, a statute making persons convicted of drug crimes ineligible for student loans. See, e. g., 20 U. S. C. § 1091(r)(1). Or laws prohibiting those convicted of sex crimes from working in certain jobs that involve repeated contact with minors. See, e. g., Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 290.95(c) (West Supp. 2012). . Or laws prohibiting those previously committed for mental instability from purchasing guns. See, e. g., 18 U. S. C. § 922(g)(4). The Court concedes that it would not consider the last two laws inapplicable to preenactment convictions or commitments. Ante, at 271, n. 7. The Court does not deny that these statutes impose a “new disability in respect to past events,” but it distinguishes them based on the reason for their enactment: These statutes “address dangers that arise postenactment.” Ibid. So much for the new-disability-in-respect-to-past-events test; it has now become a new-disability-not-designed-to-guard-against-future-danger test. But why is guarding against future danger the only reason Congress may wish to regulate future action in light of past events? It obviously is not. So the Court must invent yet another doctrine to address my first example, the law making persons convicted of drug crimes ineligible for student loans. According to the Court, that statute differs. from § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) because it “has a prospective thrust.” Ante, at 271, n. 7. I cannot imagine what that means, other than that the statute regulates postenactment conduct. *282But, of course, so does § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v). Rather than reconciling any of these distinctions with Justice Story’s formulation of retroactivity, the Court leaves to lower courts the unenviable task of identifying new-disabilities-not-designed-to-guard-against-future-danger-and-also-laeking-a-prospeetive-thrust.

And anyway, is there any doubt that § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) is intended to guard against the “dangers that arise postenactment” from having aliens in our midst who have shown themselves to have proclivity for crime? Must that be rejected as its purpose simply because Congress has not sought to achieve it by all possible means — by ferreting out such dangerous aliens and going through the expensive and lengthy process of deporting them? At least some of the postenactment danger can readily be eliminated by forcing lawful permanent residents who have committed certain crimes to undergo formal “admission” procedures at our borders. Indeed, by limiting criminal aliens’ opportunities to travel and then return to the United States, § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) may encourage self-deportation. But all this is irrelevant. The positing of legislative “purpose” is always a slippery enterprise compared to the simple determination whether a statute regulates a future event — and it is that, rather than the Court’s pronouncement of some forward-looking reason, which governs whether a statute has retroactive effect.

Finally, I cannot avoid observing that even if the Court’s concern about the fairness or rationality of applying § 1101(a)(13)(C)(v) to Vartelas were relevant to the statutory-interpretation question, that concern is greatly exaggerated. In disregard of a federal statute, convicted criminal Vartelas repeatedly traveled to and from Greece without ever seeking formal admission at this country’s borders. When he was finally unlucky enough to be apprehended, and sought discretionary relief from removal under former § 212(c) of the INA, 8 U. S. C. § 1182(c) (1994 ed.), the Immigration Judge denying his application found that Vartelas had made frequent trips *283to Greece and had remained there for long periods of time, that he was “a serious tax evader,” that he had offered testimony that was “close to incredible,” and that he had not shown hardship to himself or his estranged wife and children should he be removed.. See 620 F. 3d 108, 111 (CA2 2010); Brief for Respondent 5 (internal quotation marks omitted). In decrying the “harsh penalty” imposed by this statute on Vartelas, the Court ignores those inconvenient facts. Ante, at 268. But never mind. Under any sensible approach to the presumption against retroactivity, these factual subtleties should be irrelevant to the temporal application of §1101(a)(13)(C)(v).

* * *

This case raises a plain-vanilla question of statutory interpretation, not broader questions about frustrated expectations or fairness. Our approach to answering that question should be similarly straightforward: We should determine what relevant activity the statute regulates (here, reentry); absent a clear statement otherwise, only such relevant activity which occurs after the statute’s effective date should be covered (here, post-1996 reentries). If, as so construed,' the statute is unfair or irrational enough to violate the Constitution, that is another matter entirely, and one not presented here. Our interpretive presumption against retroactivity, however, is just that — a took to ascertain what the statute means, not a license to rewrite the statute in a way the Court considers more desirable.

I respectfully dissent.

Mr. Justice Goldberg

delivered the opinion of the' Court.

Respondent Fleuti is a Swiss national who was originally admitted to this country for permanent residence on October 9, 1952, and has been here continuously since except for a visit of “about a couple hours” duration to Ensenada, Mexico, in August 1956. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, of which petitioner Rosenberg is the Los Angeles District Director, sought in April 1959 to deport respondent on the ground that at the time of his return in 1956 he “was within one or more of the classes of aliens excludable by the law existing at the time of such entry,” Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, § 241 (a)(1), 66 Stat. 204, 8 U. S. C. § 1251 (a)(1). In particular, the Service alleged' that respondent had been “convicted' of a crime involving moral turpitude,” § 212 (a) (9), 66 Stat. 182, 8 U. S. C. § 1182 (a) (9), before his 1956 return, and had for that reason been excludable when he came back from his brief trip to Mexico. A deportation order issued on that ground, but it was discovered a few months later that the order was invalid, because the crime was a petty offense not of the magnitude encompassed within the statute. The deportation proceedings were thereupon reopened and a new charge was lodged against respondent: that he had been excludable *451at the time of his 1956 return, as an alien “afflicted with psychopathic personality,” §212 (a)(4), 66 Stat. 182, 8 U. S. C. § 1182 (a)(4), by reason of the fact that he was a homosexual. Deportation was ordered on this ground and Fleuti’s appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals was dismissed, whereupon he brought the present action for declaratory judgment and review of the administrative action. It was stipulated that among the issues to be litigated was the question whether § 212 (a) (4) is “unconstitutional as being vague and ambiguous.” The trial court rejected,respondent’s contentions in this regard and in general, and granted the Government’s motion for summary judgment. On appeal, however, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit set aside the deportation order and enjoined its enforcement, holding that as applied to Fleuti § 212 (a).(4) was unconstitutionally vague in that homosexuality was not sufficiently encompassed within the term “psychopathic personality.” 302 F. 2d 652.

The Government petitioned this Court for certiorari, which we granted in order to consider the constitutionality of § 212 (a) (4) as applied to respondent Fleuti. 371 U. S. 859. Upon consideration of the case, however, and in accordance with the long-established principle that “we ought not to pass on questions of constitutionality . . . unless such adjudication is unavoidable,” Spector Motor Service, Inc., v. McLaughlin, 323 U. S. 101, 105; see also Alma Motor Co. v. Timken-Detroit Axle Co., 329 U. S. 129; Neese v. Southern R. Co., 350 U. S. 77; Mackey v. Mendoza-Martinez, 362 U. S. 384, we have concluded that there is a threshold issue of statutory interpretation in the case, the existence of which obviates.decision here as to whether §212 (a)(4) is constitutional. as applied to respondent.

That issue is whether Fleuti’s return to the United States from his afternoon trip to Ensenada, Mexico, in *452August 1956 constituted an “entry” within the meaning of § 101 (a) (13) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of. 1952, 66 Stat. 167, 8 U. S. C. § 1101 (a)(13), such that Fleuti was excludable for a condition existing at that time even though he had been permanently and continuously resident in this country for nearly four years prior thereto. Section 101 (a) (13), which has never been directly construed by this Court in relation to the kind of brief absence from the country that characterizes the present case,1 reads as follows:

“The term ‘entry’ means any coming of an alien into the United States, from a foreign port or place or from an outlying possession, whether voluntarily or otherwise, except that an alien having a lawful permanent residence in the United States shall not be regarded as making an entry into the United States for the purposes of the immigration laws if the alien proves to the satisfaction of the Attorney General that his departure to a foreign port or place or to an outlying possession was not intended or reasonably to be expected by him or his presence in a foreign port or place or in an outlying possession was not voluntary: Provided, That no person whose departure from the United States was occasioned by deportation proceedings, extradition, or other legal process - shall be held to be entitled to such exception.”

The question we must consider, more specifically, is whether Fleuti’s short visit to Mexico can possibly be regarded, as a “departure to a foreign port or place . . . [that] was not intended,” within the meaning x»f the-*453exception to the term “entry” created by the statute. Whether the 1956 return was within that exception is crucial, because Fleuti concededly was not excludable as a “psychopathic personality” at the time of his 1952 entry.2

The definition of “entry” as applied for various purposes in our immigration laws was evolved judicially, only becoming encased in statutory form with the inclusion of § 101 (a) (13) in the 1952 Act. In the early cases there was developed a judicial definition of “entry” which had harsh consequences for aliens. This viewpoint was expressed most restrictively in United States ex rel. Volpe v. Smith, 289 U. S. 422, in which the Court, speaking through Mr. Justice McReynolds, upheld deportation of an alien who, after 24 years of residence in this country following a lawful entry, was held to be excludable on his return from “a brie^ visit to Cuba,” id., at 423. The Court stated that “the word ‘entry’ . . . includes any coming of an alien from a foreign country into the United States whether such coming be the first or any subsequent one.” Id., at 425.3 Although cases in the lower courts applying the *454strict re-entry doctrine to aliens who had. left the country for brief visits to Canada or Mexico or elsewhere were numerous,4 many courts, applied the doctrine in such instances with express reluctance and explicit recognition of its harsh consequences,5 and there were a few instances in which district judges refused to hold that aliens who had been absent from the country only briefly had made “entries” upon their return.6

Reaction to the severe effects produced by adherence to the strict definition of “entry” resulted in a substantial inroad being made upon that definition in 1947 by a decision of the Second Circuit and a decision of this Court. The Second Circuit, in an' opinion by Judge Learned Hand, refused to allow a deportation which depended on the alien’s being regarded as having re-entered this coun*455try after having taken an overnight sleeper from Buffalo to Detroit on a route lying through Canada. Di Pasquale v. Karnuth, 158 F. 2d 878. Judge Hand'recognized that the alien “acquiesced in whatever route the railroad might choose to pull the car,” id., at 879, but held that it would be too harsh to impute the carrier’s intent to the alien, there being no showing that the alien knew he would be entering Canada. “Were it otherwise,” Judge Hand went on, “the alien would be subjected without means of protecting himself to the forfeiture of privileges which may be, and often are, of the most grave importance to him.” Ibid. If there were a duty upon aliens to inquire about a carrier’s route, it “would in practice become a trap, whose closing upon them would have no rational relation to anything they could foresee as-significant. We cannot believe that Congress meant to subject those who had acquired a residence, to the sport of chance, when the interests at stake may be so momentous.” Ibid. Concluding, Judge Hand said that if the alien’s return were held to be an “entry” under the circumstances, his “vested interest in his residence” would

“be forfeited because of perfectly lawful conduct which he could not possibly have supposed would result in anything of the sort. Caprice in the incidence of punishment is one of the indicia of tyranny, and nothing can be more disingenuous than to say that deportation in these circumstances is not punishment. It is well that we should be free to rid ourselves of those who abuse our hospitality.; but it is more important that the continued enjoyment of that hospitality once granted, shall not be subject to meaningless and irrational hazards.” Ibid.

Later the same year this Court, because of a conflict between Di Pasquale and Del Guercio v. Delgadillo, 159 F. 2d 130 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1947), granted certiorari in the *456latter case and reversed a deportation order affecting an alien who, upon rescue after his intercoastal merchant ship was torpedoed in the Caribbean during World War II, had been taken to Cuba to recuperate for a week before returning to this country. Delgadillo v. Carmichael, 332 U. S. 388. The Court pointed out that it was “the exigencies of war, not his voluntary act,” id., at 391, which put the alien on foreign soil, adding that “[w]e might as well hold that if he had been kidnapped and taken to Cuba, he made a statutory 'entry’ on his voluntary return. Respect for law does not thrive on captious interpretations.” Ibid. Since “[t]he stakes are indeed high and momentous for the alien who has acquired his residence here,” ibid., the Court held that

“[w]e will not attribute to Congress a purpose to make his right to remain here dependent on circumstances so fortuitous and capricious as those upon which the Immigration Service has here seized. The ha. ards to which we are now asked to subject the alien are too irrational to square with the statutory scheme.” Ibid.

The increased protection of returning resident aliens which-was brought about by the Delgadillo decision, both in its result and in its express approval of Di Pasquale, was reflected in at least two subsequent lower-court decisions' prior to the enactment of § 101 (a) (13). In Yukio Chai v. Bonham, 165 F. 2d 207 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1947), the court held that no “entry” had occurred after a ship carrying a resident alien back from seasonal cannery work in Alaska made an unscheduled stop in Vancouver, B. C., and in Carmichael v. Delaney, 170 F. 2d 239 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1948), the court held that a resident alien returning from wartime service with the United States Maritime Service during which he had stopped at many foreign ports made no “entry” because all of the movements of *457the ship to which he had been assigned were pursuant to Navy orders.7

It was in light of all of these developments in the case law that § 101 (a) (13) was included in the immigration laws with the 1952 revision. As the House and Senate Committee Reports, the relevant material from which is quoted in the margin,8 make clear, the major congressional *458concern in codifying the definition of “entry” was with “the status of an alien who has previously entered the United States and resided therein . . . .” This concern was in the direction of ameliorating the harsh results visited upon resident aliens by the rule of United States ex rel. Volpe v. Smith, supra, as is indicated by the recognition that “the courts have departed from the rigidity of . . . [the earlier] rule,” and the statement that “[t]he bill . . . [gives] due recognition to the judicial precedents.” It must be. recognized, of course, that the only liberalizing decisions to which the Reports referred specifically were Di Pasquale and Delgadillo, and that there is no indication one way or the other in the legislative history of what Congress thought about the problem of resident aliens who leave the country for insignificantly short periods of time. Nevertheless, it requires but brief consideration of the policies underlying §101 (a) (13), and of certain other aspects of the rights of returning resident aliens, to conclude that Congress, in approving the judicial undermining of Volpe, supra, and the relief brought about by the Di Pasquale and Delgadillo decisions, could not have meant to limit the meaning of the exceptions it created in § 101 (a) (13) to the facts of those two cases.

The most basic guide to congressional intent as to the reach of the exceptions is the eloquent language of Di Pasquale and Delgadillo themselves, beginning with the recognition that the “interests at stake” for the resident alien are .“momentous,” 158 F. 2d, at 879, and that “[t]he stakes are indeed high and momentous for the alien who has acquired his residence here,” 332 U. S., at 391. This *459general premise of the two decisions impelled the more general conclusion that “it is . . . important that the continued enjoyment of . . . [our] hospitality once granted, shall not be subject to meaningless and irrational hazards.” 158 F. 2d, at 879. See also Delgadillo, supra, at .391. Coupling these essential principles of the two-decisions explicitly approved by Congress in enacting § 101 (a) (13) with the more general observation, appearing in Delgadillo as well as elsewhere,9 that “[d]eportation can be the equivalent of banishment or exile,” it is difficult to conceive that Congress meant its approval of the liberalization wrought by Di Pasquale and Delgadillo to be interpreted mechanistically to apply only to cases presenting factual situations identical to what was involved in those two decisions.

The idea that the exceptions to § 101 (a) (13) should be read nonrestrictively is given additional credence by the way in which the immigration laws define what constitutes “continuous residence” for an alien wishing to be naturalized. Section 316 of the 1952 Act, 66 Stat. 242-243, 8 U. S. C. § 1427, which liberalized previous law in some respects, provides that an alien who wishes to seek naturalization does not begin to endanger the five years of “continuous residence” in this country which must precede his application until he remains outside the .country for six months, and does not damage his position by cumulative temporary absences unless they total over half of the five years preceding the filing of his petition for naturalization. This enlightened concept of what constitutes a meaningful interruption of the continuous residence which must support a petition for naturalization, reflecting as it does a congressional judgment that an *460alien’s status is not necessarily to be endangered by his absence from the country, strengthens the foundation underlying a belief that the exceptions to § 101 (a) (13) should be read to protect resident aliens who are only briefly absent from the country. Of further, although less specific, effect in this regard is this Court’s holding in Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding, 344 U. S. 590, that the returning resident alien is entitled as a matter of due process to a hearing on the charges underlying any attempt to exclude him, a holding which supports the general proposition that a resident alien who leaves this country is to be regarded as retaining certain basic rights.

Given that the congressional protection of returning resident aliens in § 101 (a) (13) is not to be woodenly construed, we turn specifically to construction of the exceptions contained in that section as they relate to resident aliens who leave the country briefly. What we face here is another harsh consequence of the strict “entry” doctrine which, while not governed directly by Delgadillo, nevertheless calls into play the same considerations, pp. 454-456; 458-459, supra, which led to the results specifically approved in the Congressional Committee Reports. It would be as “fortuitous and capricious,” and as “irrational to square with the statutory scheme,” Delgadillo, supra, at 391, to hold that an alien may necessarily be deported because he falls into one of the classes enumerated in § 212 (a) when he returns from “a couple hours” visit to Mexico as it would have been to uphold the order of deportation in Delgadillo: Certainly when an alien like Fleuti who has entered the country lawfully and has acquired a residence here steps across a border and, in effect, steps right back, subjecting him to exclusion for a condition for which he Could not have been deported had he remained in the country seems to be placing him at the mercy of the “sport of chance” and the “meaningless and irrational hazards” to which Judge Hand alluded. Di *461 Pasquale, supra, at 879. In making such a casual trip the alien would seldom be aware that he was possibly walking into a trap, for the insignificance of a brief trip to Mexico or Canada bears little rational relation to the punitive consequence of subsequent excludability. There are, of course, valid policy reasons for saying that an alien wishing to retain his classification as a permanent resident of this country imperils his status by interrupting his residence too frequently or for an overly long period of time, but we discern no rational policy supporting application of a re-entry limitation in all cases in which a resident alien crosses an international border for a short visit.10 Certainly if that trip is innocent, casual, and brief, it is consistent with all the discernible signs of congressional purpose to hold that ihe “departure '. . . was not intended” within the meapiing and ameliorative intent of the exception to § 101 (a) (13). Congress unquestionably has the power to exclude all classes of undesirable aliens from this country, and the courts are charged with enforcing such exclusion when Congress has directed it, but we do not think Congress intended to exclude aliens long resident in this country after lawful entry who have merely stepped across an international border and returned in “about a couple of hours.” Such a holding would be inconsistent with' the general purpose of *462Congress in enacting § 101 (a) (13) to ameliorate the severe effects of the strict “entry” doctrine.

We conclude, then, that it effectuates congressional purpose to construe the intent exception to § 101 (a) (13) as meaning an intent to depart in a manner which can be regarded as meaningfully interruptive of the alien’s permanent residence. One major factor relevant to whether such intent can be inferred is, of course, the length of time the alien is absent. Another is the purpose of the visit, for if the purpose of leaving the country is to accomplish some object which is itself contrary to some policy reflected in our immigration laws, it would appear that the interruption of residence thereby occurring would properly be regarded as meaningful. Still another is whether the alien has to procure any travel documents in order to make his trip, since the need to obtain such items might well cause the alien to consider more fully the implications involved in his leaving the country. Although the operation of these and other possibly relevant factors remains to be developed “by the-gradual process of judicial inclusion and exclusion,” Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97, 104, we declare today simply that an innocent, casual, and brief excursion by a resident alien outside this country’s borders may not have been “intended” as a departure disruptive of his resident alien status and therefore may not subject him to the consequences of an “entry” into' the country on his return. The more civilized application of our immigration laws given recognition by Congress in § 101 (a) (13) and other provisions of the 1952 Act protects the resident alien from unsuspected risks and unintended consequences pf such a wholly innocent action. Respondent here, so'far as appear^ from the record, is among those to be protected. However, because attention waá not'previously focused upon the application of § 101 (a) (13) to the case, the record contains no detailed description or characterization of his *463trip to Mexico in 1956, except for his testimony that he was gone “about a couple hours,” and that he was “just visiting; taking a trip.” That being the case, we deem it appropriate to remand the case for further consideration of the application of § 101 (a) (13) to this ease in light of our discussion herein. If it is determined that respondent did not “intend” to depart in the sense contemplated by § 101 (a) (13), the deportation order will not stand and adjudication of the constitutional issue reached by the court below will be obviated. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore vacated and the case remanded with directions that the parties be given leave to amend their pleadings to putin issue the question of “entry” in accordance with the foregoing, and for further proceedings consistent herewith.

So ordered.

Mr. Justice Clark,

with whom Mr. Justice Harlan,... Mr. Justice Stewart and Mr. Justice White join,

dissenting.

I dissent from the Court’s judgment and' opinion because “statutory construction” means to me that the Coult can construe statutes but not that it can construct them. The latter function is reserved to the Congress, which clearly said what it meant and undoubtedly meant what it said when it defined “entry” for immigration purposes as follows:

“The term ‘entry’ means any coming of an alien into the United States, from a foreign port or place or from an outlying possession, whether voluntarily or otherwise, except that an alien having a lawful permanent residence in the United States shall not be regarded , as making an entry into the United States for the purposes of the immigration laws if the alien proves to the satisfaction of the Attorney General *464that his departure to a foreign port or place or to an outlying possession was not intended or reasonably to be expected by him or his presence in a foreign port or place or in an outlying possession was not voluntary. ...” 8 U. S. C. § 1101 (a) (13).

That this definition of “entry” includes the respondent’s entry after his brief trip to Mexico in 1956 is a conclusion which seems to me inescapable. The conclusion is compelled by the plain meaning of the statute, its legislative history, and the consistent interpretation by the federal courts. Indeed, the respondent himself did not even question that his return to the United States was an “entry” within the meaning of § 101 (a) (13). Nonetheless, the Court has rewritten the Act sua sponte, creating a definition of “entry” which wás suggested by many organizations during the hearings prior to its enactment but which was rejected by the Congress. I believe the authorities discussed in the Court’s opinion demonstrate that “entry” as defined in § 101 (a) (13) cannot mean what the Court says it means, but I will add a few words of explanation.

The word “entry” had acquired a well-defined meaning for immigration purposes at the time the Immigration and Nationality Act was passed in 1952. The leading case was United States ex rel. Volpe v. Smith, 289 U. S. 422 (1933), which held that an alien who had resided continuously in the United States for 26 years except for a brief visit to Cuba made an “entry” at the time of his return from Cuba. The Court there stated that the word “entry” in the Immigration Act of 1917. “includes any coming of an alien from a foreign country into the United States whether such coming be the first or any subsequent one.” Id., at 425. That conclusion was based on sound authority, since the'Court had earlier held that a resident alien who crossed the river ’from Detroit to Windsor, Canada, and returned on the same day made *465an “entry” upon his return. Lewis v. Frick, 233 U. S. 291 (1914).

The federal courts in numerous cases were called upon to apply this definition of “entry” and did so consistently, specifically recognizing that the brevity of one’s stay outside the country was immaterial to the question of whether his return was an “entry.” See, e. g., United States ex rel. Kowalenski v. Flynn, 17 F. 2d 524 (D. C. W. D. N. Y. 1927); Schoeps v. Carmichael, 177 F. 2d 391 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1949). A related but obviously distinguishable question did create difficulties for .the courts, however, leading to conflicting opinions among the Circuits as to whether á resident alien makes an “entry” when he had no intent to leave the country or did not leave voluntarily. It was decided by this Court in Delgadillo v. Carmichael, 332 U. S. 388 (1947), which held that an alien whose ship had been torpedoed and sunk, after which he was rescued and taken to Cuba for a week, did not make an “entry” on his return to the United States. The Court discussed the Volpe case but distinguished it and others on the ground that “those were cases where the alien plainly expected or planned to enter a foreign port or place. Here he was catapulted into the ocean, rescued, and taken to Cuba. He had no part in selecting the foreign port as his destination.” Id., at 390. The Court- specifically relied on Di Pasquale v. Karnuth, 158 F. 2d 878 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1947), where an alien who had ridden a sleeping car from Buffalo to Detroit, without knowledge that the train’s route was through Canada, was held not to have made an “entry” upon his arrival in Detroit.

These cases and others discussed by the Court establish the setting in which the Immigration and Nationality Act was passed in 1952. The House and Senate reports quoted by the Court show that the Congress recognized the courts’ difficulty with the rule that “any coming” óf *466an alien into the United States was an “entry,” even when the departure from the country was unintentional or involuntary. The reports discuss the broad rule of the Volpe case and the specific limitations of the Di Pasquale and Delgadillo cases, citing, those cases by name, and conclude with the following language:

“The bill defines the term ‘entry’ as precisely as practicable, giving due recognition to the judicial precedents. Thus any coming of an alien from a foreign port or place or an outlying possession into the United States is to be considered an entry, whether voluntary or otherwise, unless the Attorney General is satisfied that the departure of the alien, other than a deportee, from this country was unintentional or was not voluntary.” H. R. Rep. No. 1365, 82d Cong., 2d Sess. 32; S. Rep. No: 1137, 82d Cong., 2d Sess. 4.

Thus there is nothing in the legislative history or in the statute itself which would exempt the respondent’s return from Mexico from the definition of “entry.” Rather, the statute in retaining the definition expressed in Volpe seems clearly to cover respondent’s entry, which occurred after he knowingly left the United States in order to travel to a city in Mexico. That the trip may have been “innocent, casual, and brief” does not alter the fact that, in the words of the Court in Delgadillo, the respondent “plainly expected or planned to enter a foreign port or place.”. 332 U. S., at 390.

It is true that this application of the law to a resident alien may be harsh, but harshness is a far cry from the irrationality condemned in Delgadillo, supra, at 391. There and in Di Pasquale contrary results would have meant that a resident alien, who was not deportable unless he left the country and reentered, could be deported as a result of circumstances either beyond his control or *467beyond his knowledge. Here, of course, there is no claim that respondent 'did not know he was leaving the country to enter Mexico and, since one is presumed to know the law, he knew that his brief trip and reentry would render him deportable. The Congress clearly has chosen so to apply the long-established definition, and this Court cannot alter that legislative determination in the guise of statutory construction. Had the Congress not wished the definition of “entry” to include a return after a brief but voluntary and intentional trip, it could have done so. The Court’s discussion of § 316 of the Act shows that the Congress knows well how to temper rigidity when it wishes. Nor can it be said that the Congress was unaware of the breadth of its definition. Even aside from the evidence that it was aware of the judicial precedents, numerous organizations unsuccessfully urged that the definition be narrowed to accomplish what the Court does today. Thus, it was urged that the Act’s definition of “entry” “should, we believe, be narrowed so that it will not be applicable to an alien returning from abroad, after a temporary absence, to an unrelinquished domicile here.” 1 Other groups complained also that “[t]he term ‘entry’ is defined to mean any coming of an alien into the United States. It is recommended that this be narrowed to provide that a return, after a temporary absence, to an unrelinquished domicile, shall not constitute a new entry.” 2 Despite such urging, however, the Congress made no change in the definition. Further, this Court *468in 1958 specifically recognized that the word “entry” retained its plain meaning, stating that “a resident alien who leaves the country for any period, however brief, does make a new entry om his return . . . .” Bonetti v. Rogers, 356 U. S. 691, 698.

All this to the contrary notwithstanding, the Court today decides that one does not really intend to leave the country unless he plans a long trip, or his journey is for an illegal purpose, or he needs travel documents in order to make the trip. This is clearly contrary to the definition in the Act and to any definition of “intent” that I was taught.3

What the Court should do is proceed to the only question which either party sought to resolve: whether-the deportation order deprived respondent of due process of law. in that the term “afflicted with psychopathic personality,” as it appears in § 212 (a) (4) of the Act, is unconstitutionally vague. Since it fails to do so, I must dissent.