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															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 12–930

															_________________

															LORI SCIALABBA, ACTING DIRECTOR, UNITEDSTATES
CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES, et al., PETITIONERS v.
ROSA-LINA CUELLAR DE OSORIO et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 9, 2014]

															     Justice Kagan
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in
which Justice Kennedy and Justice Ginsburg join.

															     Under the Immigration
and Nationality Act, 8 U. S. C. §1101 et seq., citizens
and lawful permanent residents (LPRs) of the United States may
petition for certain fam-ily members—spouses, siblings, and
children of various ages—to obtain immigrant visas. Such a
sponsored individual is known as the petition’s principal
beneficiary. In turn, any principal beneficiary’s minor
child—meaning an unmarried child under the age of 21—qualifies as a
derivative beneficiary, “entitled to the same [immigration] status”
and “order of consideration” as his parent. §1153(d). Accordingly,
when a visa becomes available to the petition’s principal
beneficiary, one also becomes available to her minor child.

															     But what happens if,
sometime after the relevant petition was filed, a minor child
(whether a principal or a derivative beneficiary) has turned 21—or,
in immigration lingo, has “aged out”? The immigration process may
take years or even decades to complete, due in part to bureaucratic
delays associated with reviewing immigration documents and in
(still greater) part to long queues for the limited number of visas
available each year. So someone who was a youngster at the start of
the process may be an adult at the end, and no longer qualify for
an immigration status given to minors. The Child Status Protection
Act (CSPA), 116Stat. 927, ensures that the time Government
officials have spent processing immigration papers will not count
against the beneficiary in assessing his status. See 8
U. S. C. §1153(h)(1). But even with that provision, the
beneficiary may age out solely because of the time he spent waiting
in line for a visa to become available.

															     The question presented
in this case is whether the CSPA grants a remedy to all aliens who
have thus outpaced the immigration process—that is, all aliens who
counted as child beneficiaries when a sponsoring petition was
filed, but no longer do so (even after excluding administrative
delays) by the time they reach the front of the visa queue. The
Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA or Board) said no. It interpreted
the CSPA as providing relief to only a subset of that
group—specifically, those aged-out aliens who qualified or could
have qualified as principal beneficiaries of a visa petition,
rather than only as derivative beneficiaries piggy-backing on a
parent. We now uphold the Board’s determination as a permissible
construction of the statute.

															I

															A

															     An alien needs an
immigrant visa to enter and permanently reside in the United
States. See §1181(a).[ 1 ] To
obtain that highly sought-after document, the alien must fall
within one of a limited number of immigration cate-gories. See
§§1151(a)–(b). The most favored is for the “immediate relatives” of
U. S. citizens—their parents, spouses, and unmarried children under
the age of 21.See §§1151(b)(2)(A)(i), 1101(b)(1). Five other
categories—crucial to this case, and often denominated “preference”
categories—are for “family-sponsored immigrants,” who include more
distant or independent relatives of U. S. citizens, and
certain close relatives of LPRs.[ 2 ] Specifically, those family preference categories
are:

															F1:      the unmarried,
adult (21 or over) sons and daughters of U. S. citizens;

															F2A:      the spouses and
unmarried, minor (under 21) children of LPRs;

															F2B:      the unmarried,
adult (21 or over) sons and daughters of LPRs;

															F3:      the married sons
and daughters of U. S. citizens;

															F4:      the brothers and
sisters of U. S. citizens. §§1151(a)(1), 1153(a)(1)–(4).[ 3 ]

															(A word to the wise: Dog-ear this page for easy
reference, because these categories crop up regularly throughout
this opinion.)

															     The road to obtaining
any family-based immigrant visa begins when a sponsoring U. S.
citizen or LPR files a petition on behalf of a foreign relative,
termed the principal beneficiary. See §§1154(a)(1)(A)(i),
(a)(1)(B)(i)(I), (b); 8 CFR §204.1(a)(1) (2014). The sponsor
(otherwise knownas the petitioner—we use the words interchangeably)
must provide U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
(USCIS) with evidence showing, among other things, that she has the
necessary familial relationship with thebeneficiary, see
§§204.2(a)(2), (d)(2), (g)(2), and that she has not committed any
conduct disqualifying her from sponsoring an alien for a visa, see,
e.g., 8 U. S. C. §1154(a)(1)(B)(i)(II) (barring an LPR
from submitting a petition if she has committed certain offenses
against minors). USCIS thereafter reviews the petition, and
approves it if found to meet all requirements. See §1154(b).

															     For a family preference
beneficiary, that approval results not in getting a visa then and
there, but only in getting a place in line. (The case is different
for “immediate relatives” of U. S. citizens, who can apply for
and receive a visa as soon as a sponsoring petition is approved.)
The law caps the number of visas issued each year in the five
family preference categories, see §§1151(c)(1), 1152,
1153(a)(1)–(4), and demand regularly exceeds the supply. As a
consequence, the principal beneficiary of an approved petition is
placed in a queue with others in her category (F1, F2A, or what
have you) in order of “priority date”—that is, the date a petition
was filed with USCIS. See §1153(e)(1); 8 CFR §204.1(b); 22 CFR
42.53(a) (2013). Every month, the Department of State sets a
cut-off date for each family preference category, indicating that
visas (sometimes referred to by “visanumbers”) are available for
beneficiaries with priority dates earlier than the cut-off. See 8
CFR §245.1(g)(1); 22 CFR §42.51(b). The system is thus first-come,
first-served within each preference category, with visas becoming
available in order of priority date.

															     Such a date may benefit
not only the principal beneficiary of a family preference petition,
but also her spouse and minor children. Those persons, labeled the
petition’s “derivative beneficiar[ies],” are “entitled to the same
status, and the same order of consideration” as the principal. 8
U. S. C. §§1153(d), (h). Accordingly, when a visa becomes
available for the principal, one becomes available for her spouse
and minor children too. And that is so even when (as is usually but
not always the case) the spouse and children would not qualify for
any family preference category on their own. For example, the child
of an F4 petition’s principal beneficiary is the niece or nephew of
a U. S. citizen, and federal immigration law does not
recognize that relationship. Nonetheless, the child can piggy-back
on his qualifying parent in seeking an immigrant visa—although, as
will be further discussed, he may not immigrate without her. See 22
CFR §40.1(a)(2); infra, at 6, 20–21, 31–32.

															     Once visas become
available, the principal and any derivative beneficiaries must
separately file visa applications. See 8 U. S. C.
§1202(a). Such an application requires an alien to demonstrate in
various ways her ad-missibility to the United States. See, e.g.,
§1182(a)(1)(A) (alien may not have serious health problems);
§1182(a)(2)(A) (alien may not have been convicted of certain
crimes); §1182(a)(3)(B) (alien may not have engaged in terrorist
activity). Notably, one necessary showing involves the U. S.
citizen or LPR who filed the initial petition: To mitigate any
possibility of becoming a “public charge,” the visa applicant
(whether a principal or de-rivative beneficiary) must append an
“affidavit of sup-port” executed by that sponsoring individual.
§§1182(a)(4)(C)(ii), 1183a(a)(1). Such an affidavit legally commits
the sponsor to support the alien, usually for at least 10 years,
with an annual income “not less than125% of the federal poverty
line.” §1183a(a)(1)(A); see §§1183a(a)(2)–(3).

															     After the beneficiaries
have filed their applications, a consular official reviews the
documents and, if everything is in order, schedules in-person
interviews. See §1202(h). The interviews for a principal and her
children (or spouse) usually occur back-to-back, although those for
the children may also come later.[ 4 ] The consular official will determine first whether the
principal should receive a visa; if (but only if ) the answer
is yes, the official will then consider the derivatives’
applications. See 22 CFR §§40.1(a)(2), 42.62, 42.81(a). Provided
all goes well, everyone exits the consulate with visas in hand—but
that still does not make them LPRs. See 8 U. S. C.
§1154(e). Each approved alien must then travel to the United States
within a set time, undergo inspection, and confirm her
admissibility. See §§1201(c), 1222, 1225(a)–(b). Once again, a
derivative’s fate is tied to the principal’s: If the principal
cannot enter the country, neither can her children (or spouse). See
§1153(d); 22 CFR §40.1(a)(2). When, but only when, an alien with an
immigrant visa is approved at the border does she finally become an
LPR.[ 5 ]

															B

															     All of this takes
time—and often a lot of it. At the front end, many months may go by
before USCIS approves the initial sponsoring petition.[ 6 ] On the back end, several additional
months may elapse while a consular official considers the alien’s
visa application and schedules an interview.[ 7 ] And the middle is the worst. After a sponsoring
petition is approved but before a visa application can be filed, a
family-sponsored immigrant may stand in line for years—or even
decades—just waiting for an immigrant visa to become available.
See, e.g., Dept. of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, 9 Visa
Bulletin, Immigrant Numbers for December 2013 (Nov. 8, 2013).

															     And as the years tick
by, young people grow up, and thereby endanger their immigration
status. Remember that not all offspring, but only those under the
age of 21 can qualify as an “immediate relative” of a U. S.
citizen, or as the principal beneficiary of an LPR’s F2A petition,
or (most crucially here) as the derivative beneficiary of any
family preference petition. See supra, at 3, 5. So an alien
eligible to immigrate at the start of the process (when a sponsor
files a petition) might not be so at the end (when an immigration
official reviews his documents for admission). He may have “aged
out” of his original immigration status by the simple passage of
time.

															     In 2002, Congress
enacted the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA), 116Stat. 927, to
address the treatment of those once-but-no-longer-minor aliens. One
section of the Act neatly eliminates the “aging out” problem for
the offspring of U. S. citizens seeking to immigrate as
“immediate relatives.” Under that provision, the “determination of
whether [such] an alien satisfies the [immigration law’s] age
requirement . . . shall be made using [his] age” on the
date the initial petition was filed. 8 U. S. C.
§1151(f )(1). The section thus halts the flow of time for that
group of would-be immigrants: If an alien was young when a
U. S. citizen sponsored his entry, then Peter Pan-like, he
remains young throughout the immigration process.

															     A different scheme—and
one not nearly so limpid—applies to the offspring of LPRs and
aliens who initially qualified as either principal beneficiaries of
F2A petitions or derivative beneficiaries of any kind of family
preference petition. Section 3 of the CSPA, now codified at 8
U. S. C. §1153(h), contains three interlinked paragraphs
that mitigate the “aging out” problem for those prospective
immigrants. The first two are complex but, with some perseverance,
comprehensible. The third—the key provision here—is through and
through perplexing.[ 8 ]

															     The first paragraph,
§1153(h)(1), contains a formula for calculating the age of an alien
“[f ]or purposes of subsections (a)(2)(A) and (d)”—that is,
for any alien seeking an immigrant visa directly under F2A or as a
derivative beneficiary of any preference category. The
“determination of whether [such] an alien satisfies the
[immigration law’s] age requirement”—that is, counts as under
21—“shall be made using—

															     “(A) the age of the
alien on the date on which an immigrant visa number becomes
available for such alien (or, in the case of [derivative
beneficiaries], the date on which an immigrant visa number became
available for the alien’s parent) . . . ; reduced by

															     “(B) the number of days
in the period during which the applicable petition described in
paragraph (2) was pending.” §1153(h)(1).

															The cross-referenced second paragraph,
§1153(h)(2), then explains that the “applicable petition” mentioned
is the petition covering the given alien—so again, either an F2A
petition filed on his own behalf or any petition extending to him
as a derivative.

															     Taken together, those
two paragraphs prevent an alien from “aging out” because of—but
only because of—bureaucratic delays: the time Government officials
spend reviewing (or getting around to reviewing) paperwork at what
we have called the front and back ends of the immigration process.
See supra, at 6–7. The months that elapse before USCIS personnel
approve a family preference petition (“the period during which the
applicable petition described in paragraph (2) was pending”) do not
count against an alien in determining his statutory “age.” Neither
do the months a consular officer lets pass before adjudicating the
alien’s own visa application (the period after “an immigrant visa
number becomes available for such alien (or . . . [his]
parent)”). But the time in between—the months or, more likely,
years the alien spends simply waiting for a visa to become
available—is not similarly excluded in calculating his age: Every
day the alien stands in that line is a day he grows older, under
the immigration laws no less than in life. And so derivative
beneficiaries, as well as principal beneficiaries of F2A petitions,
can still “age out”—in other words, turn 21, notwithstanding
§1153(h)(1)’s dual age adjustments—prior to receiving an
opportunity to immigrate.

															     What happens then (if
anything) is the subject of §1153(h)’s third paragraph—the
provision at issue in this case. That paragraph states:

															     “If the age of an
alien is determined under paragraph (1) to be 21 years of age or
older for the purposes of subsections (a)(2)(A) and (d) of this
section, thealien’s petition shall automatically be converted to
the appropriate category and the alien shall retain the original
priority date issued upon receipt of the original petition.”

															The provision thus first references the aged-out
beneficiaries of family preference petitions, and then directs
immigration officials to do something whose meaning this opinion
will further consider—i.e., “automatically convert” an alien’s
petition to an “appropriate category.”

															     The Board of
Immigration Appeals (BIA) addressed the meaning of §1153(h)(3) in
Matter of Wang, 25 I. & N. Dec. 28 (2009); its
interpretation there is what we review in this case. Wang was the
principal beneficiary of an F4 petition that his sister, a
U. S. citizen, filed in 1992. At that time, Wang’s daughter
was 10 years old, and thus qualified as a derivative beneficiary.
But Wang waited in line for a visa for more than a decade, and by
the time his priority date finally came up, his daughter had turned
22 (even after applying §1153(h)(1)’s age-reduction formula). Wang
thus obtained a visa for himself, boarded a plane alone, and
entered the United States as an LPR. He then filed a new preference
petition on his daughter’s behalf—this one under F2B, the category
for LPRs’ adult sons and daughters. USCIS approved that petition,
with a priority date corresponding to the date of Wang’s filing.
Wang contended that under §1153(h)(3), his daughter was instead
entitled to “retain the original priority date” given to his
sister’s old F4 petition, because that petition could
“automatically be converted” to the F2B category.

															     The Board rejected that
argument. It explained that “the language of [§1153(h)(3)] does not
expressly state which petitions qualify for automatic conversion
and retention of priority dates.” Id., at 33. Given that
“ambiguity,” the BIA looked to the “recognized meaning” of “the
phrase ‘automatic conversion’ ” in immigration statutes and
regulations—which it “presume[d]” Congress understood when enacting
the CSPA. Id., at 33–35. “Historically,” the BIA showed, that
language applied only when apetition could move seamlessly from one
family preference category to another—not when a new sponsor was
needed to fit a beneficiary into a different category. Id., at 35.
Some aged-out aliens’ petitions could accomplish that maneuver,
because the alien had a qualifying relationship with the original
sponsor, and continued to do so upon aging out; in that event, the
Board held, §1153(h)(3) ensured that the alien would retain his
original priority date. See id., at 34–35. But the F4 petition
filed by Wang’s sister could not “automatically be converted” in
that way because Wang’s daughter never had a qualifying
relationship with the sponsor: “[N]o category exists for the niece
of a United States citizen.” Id., at 35–36. That is why Wang
himself had to file a new petition on his daughter’s behalf once
she aged out and could no longer ride on his sibling status. The
Board saw no evidence that Congress meant “to expand the use of the
concept[ ] of automatic conversion” to reach such a case. Id., at
36. And the Board thought such an expansion unwarranted because it
would allow aliens like Wang’s daughter, who lacked any independent
entitlement to a visa during the years her father spent standing on
the F4 queue, to “cut[ ] in line ahead of others awaiting visas in
other preference categories.” Id., at 38.

															C

															     The respondents in
this case are similarly situated to Wang, and they seek the same
relief. Each was once the principal beneficiary of either an F3
petition filed by a U. S. citizen parent or an F4 petition
filed by a U. S. citizen sibling. Each also has a son or
daughter who, on the date of filing, was under 21 and thus
qualified as a derivative beneficiary of the petition. But as was
true of Wang’s daughter, the respondents’ offspring had all turned
21 (even accounting for §1153(h)(1)’s age adjustments) by the time
visas became available. Accordingly, the respondents immigrated to
the United States alone and, as new LPRs, filed F2B petitions for
their sons and daughters. Each argued that under §1153(h)(3), those
petitions should get the same priority date as the original F3 and
F4 petitions once had. USCIS instead gave the new F2B petitions
current priority dates, meaning that the sons and daughters could
not leapfrog over others in the F2B line.

															     This case began as two
separate suits, one joining many individual plaintiffs and the
other certified as a class action. In each suit, the District Court
deferred to the BIA’s interpretation of §1153(h)(3) in Wang, and
accordingly granted summary judgment to the Government. See Zhang
v. Napolitano, 663 F. Supp. 2d 913, 919 (CD Cal. 2009); Costelo v.
Chertoff, No. SA08–00688, 2009 WL 4030516 (CD Cal., Nov. 10, 2009).
After consolidating the two cases on appeal, a panel of the Ninth
Circuit affirmed: Like the lower courts, it found §1153(h)(3)
ambiguous and acceded to the BIA’s construction. 656 F. 3d
954, 965–966 (2011). The Ninth Circuit then granted rehearing en
banc and reversed in a 6-to-5 decision. 695 F. 3d 1003 (2012).
The majority concluded that “the plain language of the CSPA
unambiguously grants automatic conversion and priority date
retention to [all] aged-out derivative beneficiaries,” and that the
Board’s contrary conclusion “is not entitled to deference.” Id., at
1006.

															     We granted certiorari,
570 U. S. ___ (2013), to resolve a Circuit split on the
meaning of §1153(h)(3),[ 9 ] and
we now reverse the Ninth Circuit’s decision.

															II

															     Principles of Chevron
deference apply when the BIA interprets the immigration laws. See
Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense
Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 –844 (1984); INS v.
Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U. S. 415 –425 (1999). Indeed, “judicial
deference to the Executive Branch is especially appropriate in the
immigration context,” where decisions about a complex statu-tory
scheme often implicate foreign relations. Id., at 425. (Those hardy
readers who have made it this far will surely agree with the
“complexity” point.) Under Chevron, the statute’s plain meaning
controls, whatever the Board might have to say. See 467 U. S.,
at 842–843. But if the law does not speak clearly to the question
at issue, a court must defer to the Board’s reasonable
interpretation, rather than substitute its own reading. Id., at
844.

															     And §1153(h)(3) does
not speak unambiguously to the issue here—or more precisely put, it
addresses that issue in divergent ways. We might call the provision
Janus-faced. Its first half looks in one direction, toward the
sweeping relief the respondents propose, which would reach every
aged-out beneficiary of a family preference petition. But as the
BIA recognized, and we will further explain, the section’s second
half looks another way, toward a remedy that can apply to only a
subset of those beneficiaries—and one not including the
respondents’ offspring. The two faces of the statute do not easily
cohere with each other: Read either most naturally, and the other
appears to mean not what it says. That internal tension makes
possible alternative reasonable constructions, bringing into
correspondence in one way or another the section’s different parts.
And when that is so, Chevron dictates that a court defer to the
agency’s choice—here, to the Board’s expert judgment about which
interpretation fits best with, and makes most sense of, the
statutory scheme.

															     Begin by reading the
statute from the top—the part favoring the respondents. Section
1153(h)(3)’s first clause—“If the age of an alien is determined
under paragraph (1) to be 21 years of age or older for the purposes
of subsections (a)(2)(A) and (d)”—states a condition that every
aged-out beneficiary of a preference petition satisfies. That is
because all those beneficiaries have had their ages “determined
under paragraph (1)” (and have come up wanting): Recall that the
age formula of §1153(h)(1) applies to each alien child who
originally qualified (under “subsections (a)(2)(A) and (d)”) as the
principal beneficiary of an F2A petition or the derivative
beneficiary of any family preference petition. On its own, then,
§1153(h)(3)’s opening clause encompasses the respondents’ sons and
daughters, along with every other once-young beneficiary of a
family preference petition now on the wrong side of 21. If the next
phrase said something like “the alien shall be treated as though
still a minor” (much as the CSPA did to ensure U. S. citizens’
children, qualifying as “immediate relatives,” would stay forever
young, see supra, at 7–8), all those aged-out beneficiaries would
prevail in this case.

															     But read on, because
§1153(h)(3)’s second clause instead prescribes a remedy containing
its own limitation on the eligible class of recipients. “[T]he
alien’s petition,” that part provides, “shall automatically be
converted to the appropriate category and the alien shall retain
the original priority date.” That statement directs immigration
officials to take the initial petition benefitting an alien child,
and now that he has turned 21, “convert[ ]” that same petition from
a category for children to an “appropriate category” for adults
(while letting him keep the old priority date). The “conversion,”
in other words, is merely from one category to another; it does not
entail any change in the petition, including its sponsor, let alone
any new filing. And more, that category shift is to be
“automatic”—that is, one involving no additional decisions,
contingencies, or delays. See, e.g., Random House Webster’s
Unabridged Dictionary 140 (2d ed. 2001) (defining “automatic” as
“having the capability of starting, operating, moving, etc.,
independently”); The American Heritage Dictionary 122 (4th ed.
2000) (“[a]cting or operating in a manner essentially independent
of external influence”). The operation described is, then, a
mechanical cut-and-paste job—moving a petition, without any
substantive alteration, from one (no-longer-appropriate,
child-based) category to another (now-appropriate, adult)
compartment. And so the aliens who may benefit from §1153(h)(3)’s
back half are only those for whom that procedure is possible. The
clause offers relief not to every aged-out beneficiary, but just to
those covered by petitions that can roll over, seamlessly and
promptly, into a category for adult relatives.

															     That understanding of
§1153(h)(3)’s “automatic conversion” language matches the exclusive
way immigration law used the term when Congress enacted the CSPA.
For many years before then (as today), a regulation entitled
“Automatic conversion of preference classification” instructed
immigration officials to change the preference category of a
petition’s principal beneficiary when either his or his sponsor’s
status changed in specified ways. See 8 CFR §§204.2(i)(1)–(3)
(2002). For example, the regulation provided that when a U. S.
citizen’s child aged out, his “immediate relative” petition
converted to an F1 petition, with his original priority date left
intact. See §204.2(i)(2). Similarly, when a U. S. citizen’s
adult son married, his original petition migrated from F1 to F3,
see §204.2(i) (1)(i); when, conversely, such a person divorced, his
petition converted from F3 to F1, see §204.2(i)(1)(iii); and when a
minor child’s LPR parent became a citizen, his F2A petition became
an “immediate relative” petition, see §204.2(i)(3)—all again with
their original priority dates. Most notable here, what all of those
authorized changes had in common was that they could occur without
any change in the petitioner’s identity, or otherwise in the
petition’s content. In each circumstance, the “automatic
conversion” entailed nothing more than picking up the petition from
one category and dropping it into another for which the alien now
qualified.[ 10 ]

															     Congress used the word
“conversion” (even without the modifier “automatic”) in the
identical way in two other sections of the CSPA. See Law v. Siegel,
571 U. S. ___, ___ (slip op., at 7) (2014) (“[W]ords repeated
in different parts of the same statute generally have the same
meaning”). Section 2 refers to occasions on which, by virtue of the
above-described regulation, a petition “converted” from F2A to the
“immediate relative” category because of the sponsor parent’s
naturalization, or from the F3 to theF1 box because of the
beneficiary’s divorce. 8 U. S. C. §§1151(f )(2),
(3). Then, in §6, Congress authorized an additional conversion of
the same nature: It directed that when an LPR parent-sponsor
naturalizes, the petition he has filed for his adult son or
daughter “shall be converted,” unless the beneficiary objects, from
the F2B to the F1 compartment—again with the original priority date
unchanged. 8 U. S. C. §§1154(k)(1)–(3). (That opt-out
mechanism itself underscores the otherwise mechanical nature of the
conversion.) Once again, in those cases, all that is involved is a
recategorization—moving the same petition, filed by the same
petitioner, from one preference classification to another, so as to
reflect a change in either the alien’s or his sponsor’s status. In
the rest of the CSPA, as in the prior immigration regulation, that
is what “conversion” means.

															     And if the term meant
more than that in §1153(h)(3), it would undermine the family
preference system’s core premise: that each immigrant must have a
qualified sponsor. Consider the alternative addressed in Wang—if
“automatic conversion” were also to encompass the substitution of a
new petitioner for the old one, to make sure the aged-out alien’s
petition fits into a new preference category. In a case like Wang,
recall, the original sponsor doesnot have a legally recognized
relationship with the aged-out derivative beneficiary (they are
aunt and niece); accordingly, the derivative’s father—the old
principal beneficiary—must be swapped in as the petitioner to
enable his daughter to immigrate. But what if, at that point, the
father is in no position to sponsor his daughter? Suppose he
decided in the end not to immigrate, or failed to pass border
inspection, or died in the meanwhile. Or suppose he entered the
country, but cannot sponsor a relative’s visa because he lacks
adequate proof of parentage or committed a disqualifying crime. See
§1154(a)(1)(B)(i)(II); 8 CFR §204.2(d)(2); supra, at 4. Or suppose
he does not want to—or simply cannot—undertake the significant
financial obligations that the law imposes on someone petitioning
for an alien’s admission. See 8 U. S. C.
§§1183a(a)(1)(A), (f )(1)(D); supra, at 5. Immigration
officials cannot assume away all those potential barriers to entry:
That would run counter to the family preference system’s insistence
that a qualified and willing sponsor back every immigrant visa. See
§§1154(a)–(b). But neither can they easily, or perhaps at all,
figure out whether such a sponsor exists unless he files and USCIS
approves a new petition—the very thing §1153(h)(3) says is not
required.

															     Indeed, in cases like
Wang, the problem is broader: Under the statute’s most natural
reading, a new qualified sponsor will hardly ever exist at the
moment the petition is to be “converted.” Section 1153(h)(3), to be
sure, does not explicitly identify that point in time. But
§1153(h)(1) specifies the date on which a derivative beneficiary is
deemed to have either aged out or not: It is “the date on which an
immigrant visa number became available for the alien’s parent.” See
§§1153(h)(1)(A)–(B). Because that statutory aging out is the one
and only thing that triggers automatic conversion for eligible
aliens, the date of conversion is best viewed as the same. That
reading, more-over, comports with the “automatic conversion”
regulation on which Congress drew in enacting the CSPA, see supra,
at 16–17: The rule authorizes conversions “upon” or “as of the
date” of the relevant change in the alien’s status (including
turning 21))—regardless when USCIS may receive notice of the
change. 8 CFR §204.2(i); but cf. post, at 14 (Sotomayor, J.,
dissenting) (wrongly stating that under that rule conversion occurs
upon the agency’s receipt of proof of the change). But on that
date, no new petitioner will be ready to step into the old one’s
shoes if such a substitution is needed to fit an aged-out
beneficiary into a different category. The beneficiary’s parent, on
the day a “visa number became available,” cannot yet be an LPR or
citizen; by definition, she has just become eligible to apply for a
visa, and faces a wait of at least several months before she can
sponsor an alien herself. Nor, except in a trivial number of cases,
is any hitherto unidentified person likely to have a legally
recognized relationship to the alien. So if an aged-out beneficiary
has lost his qualifying connection to the original petitioner, no
conversion to an “appropriate category” can take place at the
requisite time. As long as immigration law demands some valid
sponsor, §1153(h)(3) cannot give such an alien the designated
relief.

															     On the above account—in
which conversion entails a simple reslotting of an original
petition into a now-appropriate category—§1153(h)(3)’s back half
provides a remedy to two groups of aged-out beneficiaries. First,
any child who was the principal beneficiary of an F2A petition
(filed by an LPR parent on his behalf) can take advantage of that
clause after turning 21. He is, upon aging out, the adult son of
the same LPR who sponsored him as a child; his petition can
therefore be moved seamlessly—without the slightest alteration or
delay—into the F2B category. Second, any child who was the
derivative beneficiary of an F2A petition (filed by an LPR on his
spouse’s behalf) can similarly claim relief, provided that under
the statute, he is not just the spouse’s but also the petitioner’s
child.[ 11 ] Such an alien is
identically situated to the aged-out principal beneficiary of an
F2A petition; indeed, for the price of another filing fee, he could
just as easily have been named a principal himself. He too is now
the adult son of the original LPR petitioner, and his petition can
also be instantly relabeled an F2B petition, without any need to
substitute a new sponsor or make other revisions. In each case, the
alien had a qualifying relationship before he was 21 and retains it
afterward; all that must be changed is the label affixed to his
petition.[ 12 ]

															     In contrast, as the
Board held in Wang, the aged-out derivative beneficiaries of the
other family preference categories—like the sons and daughters of
the respondents here—cannot qualify for “automatic conversion.”
Recall that the respondents themselves were principal beneficiaries
of F3 and F4 petitions; their children, when under 21, counted as
derivatives, but lacked any qualifying preference relationship of
their own. The F3 derivatives were the petitioners’ grandsons and
granddaughters; the F4 derivatives their nephews and nieces; and
none of those are relationships Congress has recognized as
warranting a family preference. See 8 U. S. C.
§§1153(a)(3)–(4). Now that the respondents’ children have turned
21, and they can no longer ride on their parents’ coattails, that
lack of independent eligibility makes a difference. For them,
unlike for the F2A beneficiaries, it is impossible simply to slide
the original petitions from a (no-longer-appropriate) child
category to a (now-appropriate) adult one. To fit into a new
category, those aged-out derivatives, like Wang’s daughter, must
have new sponsors—and for all the reasons already stated, that need
means they cannot benefit from “automatic conversion.”

															     All that said, we hold
only that §1153(h)(3) permits—not that it requires—the Board’s
decision to so distinguish among aged-out beneficiaries. That is
because, as we explained earlier, the two halves of §1153(h)(3)
face in different directions. See supra, at 14. Section
1153(h)(3)’s first part—its conditional phrase—encompasses every
aged-out beneficiary of a family preference petition, and thus
points toward broad-based relief. But as just shown, §1153(h)(3)’s
second part—its remedial prescription—applies only to a narrower
class of beneficiaries: those aliens who naturally qualify for (and
so can be “automatically converted” to) a new preference
classification when they age out. Were there an interpretation that
gave each clause full effect, the Board would have been required to
adopt it. But the ambiguity those ill-fitting clauses create
instead left the Board with a choice—essentially of how to
reconcile the statute’s different commands. The Board, recognizing
the need to make that call, opted to abide by the inherent limits
of §1153(h)(3)’s remedial clause, rather than go beyond those
limits so as to match the sweep of the section’s initial condition.
On the Board’s reasoned view, the only beneficiaries entitled to
statutory relief are those capable of obtaining the remedy
designated. When an agency thus resolves statutory tension,
ordinary principles of administrative deference require us to
defer. See National Assn. of Home Builders v. Defenders of
Wildlife, 551 U. S. 644, 666 (2007) (When a statutory scheme
contains “a fundamental ambiguity” arising from “the differing
mandates” of two provisions, “it is appropriate to look to the
implementing agency’s expert interpretation” to determine which
“must give way”).

															III

															     The respondents urge
us to overturn the Board’s judgment for three independent reasons.
First, and principally, they take issue with the Board’s—and now
our—viewof the limits associated with “automatic conversion”: They
argue that every aged-out beneficiary’s petition can “automatically
be converted” to an “appropriate category,” and that the two halves
of §1153(h)(3) are thus reconcilable. Second, the respondents
contend that even if “automatic conversion” does not extend so far,
§1153(h)(3) separately entitles each such beneficiary to the
benefit of his original petition’s priority date. And third, they
claim that the Board’s way of resolving whatever ambiguity inheres
in §1153(h)(3) is arbitrary and capricious. The dissenting opinion
reiterates the first two arguments, though with slight variation
and in opposite order, while forgoing the third. See post, at 9–19
(opinion of Sotomayor, J.) (hereinafter the dissent). We find none
of the contentions persuasive.

															A

															     The respondents (and
the dissent) initially aver that every aged-out beneficiary
(including their own sons and daughters) can “automatically be
converted” to an “appropriate” immigration category, if only
immigration officials try hard enough. The Government, in the
respondents’ view, can accomplish that feat by substituting new
sponsors for old ones, and by “managing the timing” of every
conversion to ensure such a new petitioner exists on the relevant
date. Brief for Respondents 33. And because, the respondents say,
it is thus possible to align the two halves of §1153(h)(3)—even if
through multiple administrative maneuvers—immigration officials are
under an obligation to do so. We disagree, for reasons that should
sound familiar: Several are the same as those we have just given
for upholding the Board’s interpretation. But still, we walk
through the respondents’ argument step-by-step, to show how far it
departs from any ordinary understanding of “automatic
conversion.”

															     The first (and
necessary) premise of that argument does not augur well for the
remainder: It is the view that the “automatic conversion” procedure
permits a change in the petitioner’s identity. According to the
respondents, the aged-out beneficiaries’ parents, upon becoming
LPRs, can be subbed in for the original sponsors (i.e., the
beneficiaries’ grandparents, aunts, and uncles), and the petitions
then converted to the F2B category. But as we have shown, the
“automatic conversion” language—as most naturally read and as long
used throughout immigration law—contemplates merely moving a
petition into a new and valid category, not changing its most
essential feature. See supra, at 15–17. That alone defeats the
respondents’ position.

															     And a further problem
follows—this one concerning the date of automatic conversion. The
respondents need that date to come at a time when the derivative
beneficiaries’ parents (the substitute petitioners) are already
living in the United States as LPRs; otherwise, the petitions could
not qualify for the F2B box. In an attempt to make that possible,
the respondents propose that conversion be viewed as taking place
when “the derivative beneficiary’s visa . . . application is
adjudicated.” Brief for Respondents 29. But as we have (again)
demonstrated, the statute is best read as establishing a different
date: that “on which an immigrant visa number became available for
the alien’s parent”—when, by definition, the parent is not yet an
LPR. §1153(h)(1); see supra, at 18–19. That is the moment when a
derivative ages out, which is the single change conversion
reflects. By contrast, the respondents’ suggested date has no
connection to that metamorphosis; the date of adjudication is
merely when an immigration official later discovers that a child
has turned 21. And that date is itself fortuitous, reflecting no
more than when an immigration officer got around to reviewing a
visa application: The possibility of conversion would thus depend
on bureaucratic vagaries attending the visa process. So the
respondents’ mistaken view of the timing of conversion is another
off-ramp from their argument.[ 13 ]

															     Yet there is
more—because even after substituting a new petitioner and delaying
the conversion date in a way the statute does not contemplate, the
respondents must propose yet further fixes to make “automatic”
conversion work for their sons and daughters. The respondents’ next
problem is that even on the conversion date they propose, most of
them (and other derivatives’ parents) were not yet LPRs, and so
could not possibly be sponsors. In the ordinary course, principal
and derivative beneficiaries living abroad apply for their visas at
the same time and go to the consulate together for back-to-back
interviews. See supra, at 6. And even if the parent is approved
first, that alone does not make her an LPR; she still must come to
this country, demonstrate her continued eligibility, and pass an
inspection. See ibid. Thus, the respondents must recommend changes
to the visa process to get the timing to work—essentially,
administrative juggling to hold off the derivative beneficiary’s
visa adjudication until his parent has become an LPR. In
particular, they suggest that the consular official defer the
derivative’s interview, or that the official nominally “reject the
application” and then instruct the derivative to “reapply after the
principal beneficiary immigrates.” Brief for Respondents 30. But
the need for that choreography (which, in any event, few if any of
the respondents conformed to) renders the conversion process only
less “automatic,” because now it requires special intervention,
purposeful delay, and deviation from standard administrative
practice. Conversion has become not a machine that would go of
itself, but a process painstakingly managed.

															     And after all this
fancy footwork, the respondents’ scheme still cannot succeed,
because however long a visa adjudication is postponed, a
derivative’s parent may never become able to sponsor a relative’s
visa—and immigration officials cannot practicably tell whether a
given parent has done so. We have noted before the potential
impediments to serving as a petitioner—including that a parent may
not immigrate, may not qualify as a sponsor, or may not be able to
provide the requisite financial support. See supra, at 17–18. The
respondents offer no way to deal with those many contingencies.
Require the parent to submit a new petition? But the entire point
of automatic conversion (as the respondents themselves agree) is to
obviate the need for such a document. See Brief for Respondents 30,
42. Investigate the parent’s eligibility in some other way? But
even were that possible (which we doubt) such an inquiry would not
square with the essential idea of an automatic process. Disregard
the possibility that no legal sponsor exists? But then visas would
go, inevitably and not infrequently, to ineligible aliens. And so
the workarounds have well and truly run out on the respondents’
argument.[ 14 ]

															     That leaves us with the
same statutory inconsistency with which we began. Having followed
each step of the respondents’ resourceful (if Rube Goldbergish)
argument, we still see no way to apply the concept of automatic
conversion to the respondents’ children and others like them. And
that means we continue to face a statute whose halves do not
correspond to each other—giving rise to an ambiguity that calls for
Chevron deference.

															B

															     The respondents,
however, have another idea for reconciling §1153(h)(3)’s front and
back parts (and this back-up claim becomes the dissent’s principal
argument). Recall that the section’s remedial clause instructs that
“the alien’s petition shall automatically be converted to the
appropriate category and the alien shall retain the original
priority date issued upon receipt of the original petition.” The
respondents (and the dissent) ask us to read the italicized
language as conferring a benefit wholly independent of automatic
conversion. On that view, aged-out derivatives, even though
ineligible for conversion, could “retain the[ir] original priority
date[s]” if their parents file a new petition (as the respondents
in fact did here “as a protective matter,” Tr. of Oral Arg. 55).
And then, everyone encompassed in §1153(h)(3)’s first clause would
get at least some form of relief (even if not both forms) from the
section’s second. For this argument, the respondents principally
rely on the word “and”: “Where the word ‘and’ connects two” phrases
as in §1153(h)(3)’s back half, the respondents contend, those terms
“operate independently.” Brief for Respondents 39; see post, at
9.

															     But the conjunction
“and” does not necessarily disjoin two phrases in the way the
respondents say. In some sentences, no doubt, the respondents have
a point. They use as their primary example: “[I]f the boat takes on
water, then you shall operate the bilge pump and you shall
distribute life jackets.” Brief for Respondents 39; see also post,
at 10 (offering further examples). We agree that “you shall
distribute life jackets” functions in that sentence as an
independent command. But we can come up with many paired dictates
in which the second is conditional on the first. “If the price is
reasonable, buy two tickets and save a receipt.” “If you have time
this summer, read this book and give me a report.” Or, shades of
this case: “If your cell-phone contract expires, buy a new phone
and keep the old number.”[ 15 ] In each case, the second command functions only once
the first is accomplished. Whether “and” works in that way or in
the respondents’ depends, like many questions of usage, on the
context. See, e.g., Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, Ltd. v.
Novo Nordisk A/S, 566 U. S. ___, ___ (2012).

															     Here, we think, context
compels the Board’s view that the instructions work in tandem. The
first phrase instructs immigration officials to convert a petition
(when an “appropriate category” exists); the next clarifies that
such a converted petition will retain the original priority date,
rather than receive a new one corresponding to the date of
conversion. That reading comports with the way retention figures in
other statutory and regulatory provisions respecting “conversions”;
there too, retention of a priority date is conditional on a
conversion occurring. See 8 U. S. C. §§1154(k)(1)–(3); 8
CFR §204.2(i); supra, at 16. The respondents wish to unhook the
“retention” phrase from that mooring, and use it to explain what
will attend a different event—that is, the filing of a new
petition. But that is to make “retention” conditional on something
the statute nowhere mentions—a highly improbable thing for Congress
to have done. (If, once again, a teacher says to “read this book
and give me a report,” no one would think he wants a report on some
unidentified subject.) And indeed, the respondents’ and dissent’s
own examples prove this point: In not a single one of their
proffered sentences is the second command contingent on the
occurrence of some additional, unstated event, as it would have to
be under the respondents’ construction of §1153(h)(3); rather, each
such command (e.g., “distribute life jackets”) flows directly from
the stated condition (e.g., “if the boat takes on water”). So by
far the more natural understanding of §1153(h)(3)’s text is that
retention follows conversion, and nothing else.

															     The respondents’
contrary view would also engender unusual results, introducing
uncertainty into the immigration system’s operation and thus
interfering with statutory goals. Were their theory correct, an
aged-out alien could hold on to a priority date for years or even
decades while waiting for a relative to file a new petition. Even
if that filing happened, say, 20 years after the alien aged out,
the alien could take out his priority-date token, and assert a
right to spring to the front of any visa line. At that point, USCIS
could well have a hard time confirming the old priority date, in
part because the names of derivative beneficiaries need not be
listed on a visa petition. And the possibility of such
leap-frogging from many years past would impede USCIS’s publication
of accurate waiting times. As far as we know, immigration law
nowhere else allows an alien to keep in his pocket a priority date
untethered to any existing valid petition. Without some clearer
statement, we cannot conclude Congress intended here to create such
a free-floating, open-ended entitlement to a defunct petition’s
priority date. See Wang, 25 I. & N. Dec., at
36.[ 16 ]

															C

															     Finally, the
respondents contend that even if §1153(h)(3) points at once in two
directions—toward a broader scope in its first half and a narrower
one in its second—the BIA acted unreasonably in choosing the more
restrictive reading. In their view, the Board has offered no valid
reason, consistent with “the purposes and concerns of the
immigration laws,” to treat their own sons and daughters less
favorably than aliens who were principal and derivative
beneficiaries of F2A petitions. Brief for Respondents 47. Indeed,
the respondents suggest that the BIA, “for its own unfathomable
reasons, disapproves of Congress’s decision to allow any aged-out”
aliens to get relief, and has thus “limited [§1153(h)(3)] to as few
derivative beneficiaries as possible.” Id., at 55.

															     We cannot agree. At the
least, the Board’s interpretation has administrative simplicity to
recommend it. Under that view, immigration authorities need only
perform the kind of straightforward (i.e., “automatic”) conversion
they have done for decades—moving a petition from one box to
another to reflect a given status change like aging out. See Wang,
25 I. & N. Dec., at 36. The respondents, as we have
shown, would transform conversion into a managed, multi-stage
process, requiring immigration and consular officials around the
world to sequence and delay every aged-out alien’s visa
adjudication until they are able to confirm that one of his parents
had become a qualifying and willing F2B petitioner. And according
to the Government’s (incomplete) statistics, that would have to
happen in, at a minimum, tens of thousands of cases every year. See
Reply Brief 18, n. 13.

															     Still more important,
the Board offered a cogent argument, reflecting statutory purposes,
for distinguishing between aged-out beneficiaries of F2A petitions
and the respondents’ sons and daughters. See Wang, 35
I. & N. Dec., at 38. As earlier explained, the F2A
beneficiaries have all had a qualifying relationship with an LPR
for the entire period they have waited in line—i.e., since their
original priority dates. See supra, at 19–20. That means that when
immigration authorities convert their petitions, they will enter
the F2B line at the same place as others who have had a comparable
relationship for an equal time. The conversion thus fits with the
immigration law’s basic first-come-first-served rule. See 8
U. S. C. §1153(e); supra, at 4. By contrast, the
derivative beneficiaries of F3 and F4 petitions, like the
respondents’ sons and daughters, lacked any qualifying relationship
with a citizen or LPR during the period they waited in line. See
supra, at 20–21. They were, instead, the grandchildren, nieces, or
nephews of citizens, and those relationships did not independently
entitle them to visas. If such aliens received relief under
§1153(h)(3), they would jump over thousands of others in the F2B
line who had a qualifying relationship with an LPR for a far longer
time. That displacement would, the Board reasonably found, scramble
the priority order Congress prescribed.

															     The argument to the
contrary assumes that the respondents’ sons and daughters should
“receive credit” for all the time the respondents themselves stood
in line. Brief for Respondents 50. But first, the time the
respondents spent waiting for a visa may diverge substantially from
the time their children did. Suppose, for example, that one of the
respondents had stood in the F4 queue for 15 years, and with just 4
years to go, married someone with a 17-year-old son. Under the
respondents’ reading, that derivative beneficiary, after aging out,
would get the full benefit of his new parent’s wait, and so
displace many thousands of aliens who (unlike him) had stood in an
immigration queue for nearly two decades. And second, even when the
derivative qualified as such for all the time his parent stood in
line, his status throughout that period hinged on his being that
parent’s minor child. If his parent had obtained a visa before he
aged out, he would have been eligible for a visa too, because the
law does not demand that a prospective immigrant abandon a minor
child. But if the parent had died while waiting for a visa, or had
been found ineligible, or had decided not to immigrate after all,
the derivative would have gotten nothing for the time spent in
line. See supra, at 5–6. Similarly, the Board could reasonably
conclude, he should not receive credit for his parent’s wait when
he has become old enough to live independently. In the unavoidably
zero-sum world of allocating a limited number of visas, the Board
could decide that he belongs behind any alien who has had a
lengthier stand-alone entitlement to immigrate.

															IV

															     This is the kind of
case Chevron was built for. What-ever Congress might have meant in
enacting §1153(h)(3), it failed to speak clearly. Confronted with a
self-contradictory, ambiguous provision in a complex statutory
scheme, the Board chose a textually reasonable construction
consonant with its view of the purposes and policies underlying
immigration law. Were we to overturn the Board in that
circumstance, we would assume as our own the responsible and expert
agency’s role. We decline that path, and defer to the Board.

															     We therefore reverse
the judgment of the Ninth Circuit and remand the case for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.

															It is so ordered. Notes 1 An alien already in the
United States—for example, on a student or temporary worker
visa—must obtain “adjustment of status” rather than an immigrant
visa to become a lawful permanent resident. See . Because the
criteria for securing adjustment of status and obtaining an
immigrant visa are materially identical, we use the single term
“immigrant visa” to refer to both. 2 The “family preference”
label, as used by immigration officials, applies only to these five
classifications, and not to the category for “im-mediate relatives”
of U. S. citizens. See Brief for Petitioners 3,
n. 1. 3 Immigrant visas can also
go to aliens with special, marketable skills, see §§1151(a)(2),
1153(b), or to aliens from countries with historically low
immigration to the United States, see §§1151(a)(3), 1153(c). None
of the respondents here sought visas under those “employment-based”
or “diversity” categories. 4 See Dept. of State, The
Immigrant Visa Process: Visa Applicant Interview, online at
http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/immigrate/immigrant-process/interview/applicant_interview.html
(all Internet materials as visited June 5, 2014, and available in
Clerk of Court’s case file). 5 The last part of the
immigration process is streamlined for aliens already residing in
the United States who have applied for adjustment of status. See
n. 1, . The immigration officer interviewing such an alien,
upon finding her visa-eligible, may declare her an LPR on the spot.
See . But here too, the officer will not make a derivative
beneficiary an LPR unless and until he approves that status for the
principal. See 22 CFR §40.1(a)(2). 6 See USCIS, Processing
Time Information, online at
https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/processingTimesDisplayInit.do. 7 See The Immigrant Visa
Process: Interview, online at
http://travel.state.gov/content / visas / english / immigrate  / immigrant-process /interview.html. 8 The full text of these
three paragraphs, for the masochists among this opinion’s readers,
is as follows: 9 Compare 695 F. 3d 1003,
1006 (CA9 2012) (case below) (holding that §1153(h)(3) extends
relief to all aged-out derivative beneficiaries); v. , 655 F. 3d
363, 365 (CA5 2011) (same), with v. , 654 F. 3d 376, 385 (CA2 2011)
(holding that §1153(h)(3) not merely permits, but requires the
Board’s contrary interpretation). 10 The
dissent responds to this fact only with a pair of non-sequiturs. at
18–19 (opinion of ). First, the dissent cites a statutory provision
that does not use the word “conversion” at all, so can hardly
attest to its meaning. See . And next, the dissent cites a
regulation that post-dated the CSPA by years, and thus is equally
irrelevant to what Congress intended. See 71 Fed. Reg. 35732, 35749
(2006) (adding 8 CFR §204.2(i)(1)(iv)). More-over, both provisions
relate to a circumstance in which a person can -petition for a visa
because her U. S. citizen or LPR relative either died or
engaged in domestic abuse. In that situation, the alien’s
eligibility rests throughout on her connection to the deceased or
abusive relative; no new party must ever come in, as one has to in
a case like , to salvage a no-longer-effective petition. See , at
18 (addressing the problems that the substitution of a new
petitioner raises). 11 Given
the statute’s broad definition of “child,” the only F2A derivative
beneficiaries who fall outside that proviso are stepchildren who
were over the age of 18 when the petitioner married the spousal
beneficiary. See §1101(b)(1)(B). The Government represents that
thousands of children are designated as F2A derivatives every year.
See Reply Brief 18, n. 13. 12 It
is, therefore, impossible to understand the dissent’s statement
that conversion of such a petition to an appropriate category
requires “ ‘substantive alteration’ to [the] petition.” See ,
at 19, n. 8 (opinion of . 13 Still, the respondents’ view of the
timing of conversion is better than the dissent’s. As an initial
matter, the dissent’s objection to assessing conversion as of the
date a visa becomes available hinges on an imaginary difficulty.
That approach, the dissent complains, cannot be right because that
date always “occurs before the point at which the child is
determined to have aged-out.” at 15Well, yes. The date a visa
becomes available is, under the statute, the date an alien ages out
(or not); and that status change of course occurs before an
immigration official, reviewing a visa application, finds that it
has done so. But what of it? When an official determines that an
alien was no longer a child on the date a visa became available, he
also assesses whether automatic conversion was available to the
alien that prior date. In other words, here as elsewhere in
immigration law, conversion occurs (or not) upon the date of the
relevant status change—and no other. See at 19. And once that is
understood, the supposed difficulties the dissent throws up all
melt away. At the time of the status change, F2A petitions can be
converted without further contingencies, decisions, or delays,
whereas no other petitions can. But cf. at 16, 17, n. 7
(countering, irrelevantly, that an F2A petition is automatically
converted, additional steps remain in the immigration process). And
immigration officials later reviewing visa applications know that
fact, and can treat the different classes of aged-out beneficiaries
accordingly. 14 Nor
does the dissent offer any serious aid to the respondents. The
dissent initially acknowledges that automatic conversion cannot
involve “additional decisions, contingencies, or delays.” , at 13.
But no worries, the dissent continues: “[O]nce [an alien’s parent]
provides confirmation of her eligibility to sponsor” the aged-out
alien, the original petition “can automatically be converted to an
F2B petition, with no additional decision or contingency” or
(presumably) delay. ,at 14. Think about that: Once every decision,
contingency, and delay we have just described is over (and a parent
has at long last turned out to be a viable sponsor), the dissent
assures us that no further decisions, contingencies, and delays
remain. Or, put differently, there are no contingencies after all
the contingencies have been resolved; no decisions after all the
decisions have been made; and no delay after all the delay has
transpired. And as if that argument were not awkward enough,
consider that it would make automatic conversion turn on the filing
of a new document that shows the parent’s eligibility to sponsor
her aged-out son or daughter—the very thing, as all parties agree,
that conversion is supposed to render unnecessary. See at 18,
26. 15 The
dissent appears to think that something helpful to its view follows
from repeating the word “shall” and changing the subject of the
commands. See at 9–10. But that is not so, as some further examples
show. “If you advance to the next round, my assistant shall
schedule an interview and you shall come in to answer questions.”
“If the plane is low on fuel, the tanks shall be refilled and the
pilot shall fly the route as scheduled.” In these sentences, as in
our prior ones, the second command is conditional on the first; all
that differs is that these sentences are (much like statutes) more
formal and stilted. And the dissent’s citation of v. , , adds
nothing to its argument. There, we construed the following
provision: “[T]here shall be allowed to the holder of [a secured]
claim, interest on such claim, and any reasonable fees, costs, or
charges provided for under the agreement under which such claim
arose.” , at 241. We held that the phrase “provided for under the
agreement” qualifies the words “any reasonable fees, costs, or
charges,” but not the words “interest on such claim.” at 241–242.
What relevance that interpretation bears to this case eludes
us. 16 The
dissent claims that USCIS “administered priority date retention in
exactly this manner” before the CSPA’s enactment, , at 10, but that
confident assertion is just not so—or at least not in any way that
assists the respondents. The dissent principally relies on 8 CFR
§204.2(a)(4), which prior to the CSPA’s enactment permitted an
aged-out F2A derivative beneficiary to retain his old priority date
“if [a] subsequent petition is filed ” as filed the original. Far
from authorizing an open-ended, free-floating entitlement, that
now-superseded regulation allowed an alien to keep his priority
date only if he (unlike the respondents’ offspring) had a
qualifying relationship with the initial petitioner—that is, only
if he fell within the group that the BIA in thought entitled to
reliefSee 25 I. & N. Dec., at 34–35. And the other
provisions the dissent cites (which, unlike §204.2(a)(4), continue
to operate) similarly fail to support the dissent’s position,
because they enable an alien to retain a priority date only if
attached to an existing valid petition. See (permitting an alien to
retain a priority date associated with an ex-isting F2B petition);
8 CFR §204.5(e) (permitting an alien to retain apriority date
associated with an existing employment-based peti-tion);
§204.12(f)(1) (permitting an alien to retain a priority
dateassociated with an existing employment-based petition for
immigrating physicians). SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 12–930

															_________________

															LORI SCIALABBA, ACTING DIRECTOR, UNITEDSTATES
CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES, et al., PETITIONERS v.
ROSA-LINA CUELLAR DE OSORIO et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 9, 2014]

															     Chief Justice
Roberts, with whom Justice Scalia joins, concurring in the
judgment.

															     I agree with much of
the plurality’s opinion and with its conclusion that the Board of
Immigration Appeals reasonably interpreted 8 U. S. C.
§1153(h)(3). I write separately because I take a different view of
what makes this provision “ambiguous” under Chevron
U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.,
467 U. S. 837, 843 (1984) .

															     As the plurality reads
section 1153(h)(3), the statute’s two clauses address the issue
before the Court “in divergent ways” and “do not easily cohere with
each other.” Ante, at 14. For the plurality, the first clause looks
“toward the sweeping relief the respondents propose, which would
reach every aged-out beneficiary of a family preference petition,”
while the second clause offers narrower relief that can help “only
a subset of those beneficiaries.” Ibid. Such “ill-fitting clauses,”
the plurality says, “left the Board with a choice—essentially of
how to reconcile the statute’s different commands.” Ante, at
21.

															     To the extent the
plurality’s opinion could be read to suggest that deference is
warranted because of a direct conflict between these clauses, that
is wrong. Courts defer to an agency’s reasonable construction of an
ambiguous statute because we presume that Congress intended to
assign responsibility to resolve the ambiguity to the agency.
Chevron, supra, at 843–844. But when Congress assigns to an agency
the responsibility for deciding whether a particular group should
get relief, it does not do so by simultaneously saying that the
group should and that it should not. Direct conflict is not
ambiguity, and the resolution of such a conflict is not statutory
construction but legislative choice. Chevron is not a license for
an agency to repair a statute that does not make sense.[ 1 ]

															     I see no conflict, or
even “internal tension,” ante, at 14, in section 1153(h)(3). See
FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120,
133 (2000) (we must “interpret the statute ‘as a symmetrical and
coherent regulatory scheme,’ and ‘fit, if possible, all parts into
a[ ] harmonious whole’ ” (citation omitted)).

															     The statute reads:

															     “If the age of an
alien is determined under [section 1153(h)(1)] to be 21 years of
age or older for the purposes of subsections (a)(2)(A) and (d) of
this section, the alien’s petition shall automatically be converted
to the appropriate category and the alien shall retain the original
priority date issued upon receipt of the original petition.”
§1153(h)(3).

															     The first clause states
a condition—one that beneficiaries from any preference category can
meet—and thereby defines the persons potentially affected by this
provision. But the clause does not grant anything to anyone. I
disagree with the plurality that the first clause “points toward
broad-based relief,” ante, at 21, because I do not think the first
clause points toward any relief at all.[ 2 ]

															     Imagine a provision of
the Tax Code that read: “If a student is determined to be enrolled
at an accredited university, the student’s cost of off-campus
housing shall be deductible on her tax return.” It would be
immediately apparent from that provision that an enrolled student
who lives on campus is not entitled to the deduction, even though
the student falls within the conditional first clause. And yet no
one would describe the two clauses as being in tension. If the
Internal Revenue Service then interpreted the term “cost of
off-campus housing” to exclude payments by a student who rents a
home from his parents, a court would determine whether that
interpretation was reasonable. The same is true in this
case.[ 3 ]

															     The particular benefit
provided by section 1153(h)(3) is found exclusively in the second
clause—the only operative provision. There we are told what an
aged-out beneficiary (from whatever preference category) is
entitled to: His petition “shall automatically be converted to the
appropriate category and the alien shall retain the original
priority date.” §1153(h)(3). But automatic conversion is not
possible for every beneficiary in every preference category, as the
plurality convincingly demonstrates. Ante, at 15–19. Automatic
conversion requires, at minimum, that the beneficiary have his own
sponsor, who demonstrates that he is eligible to act as a sponsor,
and who commits to providing financial support for the beneficiary.
Ante, at 18. Some aged-out children will not meet those
prerequisites, and they cannot benefit from automatic conversion
even under respondents’ interpretation of the statute.[ 4 ]

															     Beyond those
requirements, however, Congress did not speak clearly to which
petitions can “automatically be converted.” §1153(h)(3). Whatever
other interpretations of that provision might be possible, it was
reasonable, for the reasons explained by the plurality, for the
Board to interpret section 1153(h)(3) to provide relief only to a
child who was a principal or derivative beneficiary of an F2A
petition. That interpretation is consistent with the ordinary
meaning of the statutory terms, with the established meaning of
automatic conversion in immigration law, and with the structure of
the family-based immigration system. Ante, at 15–20. It also avoids
the problems that would flow from respondents’ proposed alternative
interpretations, including the suggestion that retention of the
original priority date provides a benefit wholly separate from
automatic conversion. Ante, at 18–19, 22–32.

															     I concur in the
judgment. Notes 1 v. , 551U. S. 644
(2007), is not to the contrary. There the Court confrontedtwo
different statutes, enacted to address different problems, that
pre-sented “seemingly categorical—and, at first glance,
irreconcilable—legislative commands.” at 661. We deferred to an
agency’s reasonable interpretation, which “harmonize[d] the
statutes,” in large part because of our strong presumption that one
statute does not impliedly repeal another. at 662–669. did not
address the consequences of a single statutory provision that
appears to give divergent commands. 2 For the same reason, I do
not agree with the contention in ’s dissent that the first clause
of section 1153(h)(3) unambiguously “answers the precise question
in this case.” at 6. 3 ’s dissent accuses me of
“ignor[ing]” the first clause of section 1153(h)(3), “treating
[that] clause as a nullity,” and denying the clause “effect.” at
20–21. But that point is correct only if the reader adopts ’s own
premise, that the first clause has operative effect on its own. I
give the statute’s first clause precisely the (limited) effect it
is meant to have: it defines who is affected by section 1153(h)(3).
s response to the campus housing example proves my point by
acknowledging that who gets relief under a statute depends entirely
on the meaning of the statute’s operative provision, not on the
reach of the introductory clause. See at 21. The Court would not
reject a reasonable interpretation of the term “cost of off-campus
housing,” as ’s dissent would, simply because the IRS could have
interpreted the term to cover more students who fall within the
prefatory clause. 4 s dissent is wrong that
“the relief promised in §1153(h)(3) (priority date retention and
automatic conversion) be given” to every aged-out child in every
preference category, at 21, and it therefore follows that the
statute is ambiguous. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 12–930

															_________________

															LORI SCIALABBA, ACTING DIRECTOR, UNITEDSTATES
CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES, et al., PETITIONERS v.
ROSA-LINA CUELLAR DE OSORIO et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 9, 2014]

															     Justice Alito,
dissenting.

															     I agree with many of
Justice Sotomayor’s criticismsof the plurality opinion. I also
agree with The Chief Justice’s critique of the plurality’s
suggestion that, when two halves of a statute “do not easily cohere
with each other,” an agency administering the statute is free to
decide which half it will obey. Ante, at 14. After all, “[d]irect
conflict is not ambiguity, and the resolution of such conflict is
not statutory construction but legislative choice.” Ante, at 2
(Roberts, C. J., concurring in judgment). While I, like
Justice Sotomayor, would affirm the Court of Appeals, my
justification for doing so differs somewhat from hers.

															     As I see it, the
question before us is whether there is or is not an “appropriate
category” to which the petitions for respondents’ children may be
converted. If there is, the agency was obligated by the clear text
of 8 U. S. C. §1153(h)(3) to convert the petitions and
leave the children with their original priority dates. Any such
conversion would be “automatic,” because the agency’s obligation to
convert the petitions follows inexorably, and without need for any
additional action on the part of either respondents or their
children, from the fact that the children’s ages have been
calculated to be 21 or older.[ 1 ] If there is not an appropriate category, then the
agency was not required to convert the petitions.

															     By the time respondents
became legal permanent residents and filed new petitions for their
children (if not sooner), there existed an appropriate category to
which the original petitions could be converted. That is because at
that point the children all qualified for F2B preference status, as
unmarried, adult children of legal permanent residents.
Accordingly, the agency should have converted respondents’
children’s petitions and allowed them to retain their original
priority dates.[ 2 ]

															     Section 1153(h)(3) is
brief and cryptic. It may well contain a great deal of ambiguity,
which the Board of Immigration Appeals in its expertise is free to
resolve, so long as its resolution is a “permissible construction
of the statute.” Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural
Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843 (1984) .
But the statute is clear on at least one point: “If the age of an
alien is determined under [§1153(h)(1)] to be 21 years of age or
older . . . , the alien’s petition shall automatically be
converted to the appropriate category and the alien shall retain
the original priority date issued upon receipt of the original
petition” (emphasis added). The Board was not free to disregard
this clear statutory command. Notes 1 I do not believe the term
“converted” demands the interpretationthe plurality gives it, for
the reasons advanced in ’s dissenting opinion. 2 The Government does not
argue that respondents’ children were ineligible for relief
because, as a factual matter, their ages were never “determined
. . . to be 21 years of age or older,” §1153(h)(3), after
an appropriate category became available. I therefore do not opine
on this issue. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 12–930

															_________________

															LORI SCIALABBA, ACTING DIRECTOR, UNITEDSTATES
CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES, et al., PETITIONERS v.
ROSA-LINA CUELLAR DE OSORIO et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 9, 2014]

															     Justice Sotomayor,
with whom Justice Breyer joins, and with whom Justice Thomas joins
except as to footnote 3, dissenting.

															     Although the workings
of our Nation’s immigration system are often complex, the narrow
question of statutory interpretation at the heart of this case is
straightforward. Which aged-out children are entitled to retain
their prior-ity dates: derivative beneficiaries of visa petitions
in all five family-preference categories, or derivative
beneficiaries of petitions in only one category? The initial clause
of 8 U. S. C. §1153(h)(3) provides a clear answer:
Aged-out children may retain their priority dates so long as they
meet a single condition—they must be “determined . . . to
be 21 years of age or older for purposes of” derivative beneficiary
status. Because all five categories of aged-out children satisfy
this condition, all are entitled to relief.

															     Notwithstanding this
textual command, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) ruled that
four of the five categories of aged-out children to whom
§1153(h)(3) unambiguously promises priority date retention, are, in
fact, entitled to no relief at all. See Matter of Wang, 25 I. &
N. Dec. 28, 38–39 (2009). The Court defers to that interpretation
today. In doing so, the Court does not identify any ambiguity in
the dispositive initial clause of §1153(h)(3). Indeed, it candidly
admits that the clause mandates relief for “every aged-out
beneficiary of a family-preference petition” in any of the five
categories. Ante, at 21. The Court nevertheless holds that the BIA
was free to ignore this unambiguous text on the ground that
§1153(h)(3) also offers aged-out derivative beneficiaries a type of
relief—automatic conversion—that it thinks can apply only to one of
the five categories. The Court thus perceives a conflict in the
statute that, in its view, permits the BIA to override
§1153(h)(3)’s initial eligibility clause.

															     In reaching this
conclusion, the Court fails to follow a cardinal rule of statutory
interpretation: When deciding whether Congress has “specifically
addressed the question at issue,” thereby leaving no room for an
agency to fill a statutory gap, courts must “interpret the statute
‘as a . . . coherent regulatory scheme’ and ‘fit, if
possible, all parts into [a] harmonious whole.’ ” FDA v. Brown
& Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120 –133 (2000)
(citation omitted). Because the Court and the BIA ignore obvious
ways in which §1153(h)(3) can operate as a coherent whole and
instead construe the statute as a self-contradiction that was
broken from the moment Congress wrote it, I respectfully
dissent.

															I

															     Under Chevron, the
first question we ask when reviewing an agency’s construction of a
statute is whether “Congress has directly spoken to the precise
question at issue.” Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural
Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842 (1984) .
If it has, then “the court, as well as the agency, must give effect
to th[at] unambiguously expressed intent.” Id., at 842–843.
Congress has spoken directly to the question in this case.

															     United States citizens
and lawful permanent residents (LPRs) may petition for certain
relatives who reside abroad (known as the “principal beneficiaries”
of such petitions) to receive immigrant visas. Congress has defined
five categories of eligible relatives—referred to as
family-preference categories—with annual limits on the number of
visas that may be issued within each category.[ 1 ] Because the demand for visas outstrips supply,
the wait for a visa can often last many years. While a principal
beneficiary waits, her place in line is determined based on her
“priority date,” the date on which her petition was filed. See
§1153(e)(1); 8 CFR §204.1(b) (2014); 22 CFR §42.53(a) (2013).
Priority dates are therefore crucial—the earlier one’s priority
date, the sooner one’s place will come up in line and a visa will
be available. Significantly, when the wait ends and a principal
beneficiary finally becomes eligible to apply for a visa, 8
U. S. C. §1153(d) enables the beneficiary’s spouse and
minor children (known as “derivative beneficiaries”) to do so
too.

															     This case arises from a
common problem: Given the lengthy period prospective immigrants
must wait for a visa, a principal beneficiary’s child—although
younger than 21 when her parent’s petition was initially
filed—often will have turned 21 by the time the parent’s priority
date comes up in line. Such a child is said to have “aged out” of
derivative beneficiary treatment under §1153(d). By way of example,
respondent Norma Uy was the principal beneficiary of an F4
family-preference petition filed by her U. S. citizen sister
in February 1981. That petition listed Norma’s daughter, Ruth, who
was then two years old, as a derivative beneficiary. If Norma had
reached the front of the visa line at any time before Ruth’s 21st
birthday, §1153(d) would have enabled Ruth to accompany Norma to
the United States. Unfortunately, it took more than two decades for
Norma’s priority date to become current, by which point Ruth was 23
and thus too old for derivative beneficiary status under §1153(d).
Norma therefore immigrated alone to the United States, where she
filed a new F2B petition (for unmarried children of LPRs) on Ruth’s
behalf. Before §1153(h)(3) was enacted, however, an immigrant in
Ruth’s position would have been unable to retain the February 1981
priority date from her original petition; the law would have
instead required her to receive a new priority date all the way at
the back of the F2B line.

															     Congress responded to
this problem by enacting §1153(h)(3), a provision entitled
“[r]etention of priority date.” It states:

															     “If the age of an
alien is determined under [the formula specified in] paragraph
(1)[[ 2 ]] to be 21 years of age
or older for the purpos[e] of . . . [§1153(d)] of this
section, the alien’s petition shall automatically be converted to
the appropriate category and the alien shall retain the original
priority date issued upon receipt of the original petition.”

															     The provision’s
structure is crucial to its meaning. The initial clause (call it
the “eligibility clause”) specifies who is eligible for relief. The
concluding clause (call it the “relief clause”) describes the two
forms of relief to which eligible persons are entitled. As the
title of the provision suggests, the main form of relief is the
right of an aged-out derivative beneficiary to retain the priority
date of her original petition. In Ruth Uy’s case, such relief would
mean the difference between resuming her wait near the front of the
F2B line (which would allow her to receive a visa in short order)
and being sent to the back of the line (where she would potentially
have to wait an additional 27 years). Brief for Respondents 52.

															     The question in this
case is which aged-out beneficiaries of family-preference petitions
are eligible for priority date retention: the aged-out
beneficiaries of petitions in all five family-preference categories
(which would include respondents’ children, who were derivative
beneficiaries of F3 and F4 petitions for adult children and adult
siblings of U. S. citizens, respectively), or the aged-out
beneficiaries of only F2A petitions for spouses and children of
LPRs (the interpretation offered by the BIA)?

															     Congress answered that
question in §1153(h)(3)’s eligibility clause, which specifies that
relief is to be conferred on any immigrant who has been “determined
under [the formula specified in] paragraph (1) to be 21 years of
age or older” for the purpose of §1153(d). As the plurality
concedes, this clause “states a condition that every aged-out
beneficiary of a preference petition satisfies”—that is, it makes
eligible for relief aged-out children within each of the F1, F2A,
F2B, F3, and F4 categories. Ante, at 14.

															     Congress made this
clear in two mutually reinforc-ing ways. First, by referring to the
formula set forth in “paragraph (1),” the statute incorporates that
paragraph’s cross-reference to §1153(h)(2). Section 1153(h)(2) in
turn defines the set of covered petitions to include, “with respect
to an alien child who is a derivative beneficiary under [§1153(d)],
a petition filed . . . for classificationof the alien’s
parent under [§1153(a)].” And §1153(a) encompasses all five
family-preference categories. See §§1153(a)(1)–(4). Second,
§1153(h)(3) promises relief to those who are found to be 21 “for
the purpos[e] of . . . [§1153](d),” the provision
governing derivative beneficiaries. And that provision also
unambiguously covers all five family-preference categories. See
§1153(d) (a minor child is “entitled to the same status” as a
parent who is the principal beneficiary of a petition filed under
§1153(a)); §1153(a) (setting forth the five
family-preferencecategories).

															     In short, §1153(h)(3)’s
eligibility clause answers the precise question in this case:
Aged-out beneficiaries within all five categories are entitled to
relief. “[T]he intent of Congress is clear,” so “that is the end of
the matter.” Chevron, 467 U. S., at 842.

															II

															A

															     Because it concedes
that §1153(h)(3)’s eligibility clause unambiguously “encompasses
every aged-out beneficiary of a family-preference petition,” ante,
at 21, the plurality tries to fit this case into a special pocket
of Chevron jurisprudence in which it says we must defer to an
agency’s decision to ignore a clear statutory command due to a
conflict between that command and another statutory provision. See
ante, at 14, 21. Thus, unlike in the usual Chevron case, where
ambiguity derives from the fact that the text does not speak with
sufficient specificity to the question at issue, the plurality
argues that this is a case in which ambiguity can only arise—if it
is to arise at all—if Congress has spoken clearly on the issue in
diametrically opposing ways.[ 3 ]
As the plurality frames it, §1153(h)(3)’s eligibility and relief
clauses are “Janus-faced,” and that conflict “makes possible
alternative reasonable constructions.” Ante, at 14.

															     In rushing to find a
conflict within the statute, the plurality neglects a fundamental
tenet of statutory interpretation: We do not lightly presume that
Congress has legislated in self-contradicting terms. See A. Scalia
& B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 180
(2012) (“The provisions of a text should be interpreted in a way
that renders them compatible, not
contradic-tory. . . . [T]here can be no
justification for needlessly ren-dering provisions in conflict if
they can be interpreted harmoniously”). That is especially true
where, as here, the conflict that Congress supposedly created is
not between two different statutes or even two separate provisions
within a single statute, but between two clauses in the same
sentence. See ibid. (“[I]t is invariably true that intelligent
drafters do not contradict themselves”). Thus, time and again we
have stressed our duty to “fit, if possible, all parts [of a
statute] into [a] harmonious whole.” FTC v. Mandel Brothers, Inc.,
359 U. S. 385, 389 (1959) ; see also Morton v. Mancari, 417
U. S. 535, 551 (1974) (when two provisions “are capable of
co-existence, it is the duty of the courts . . . to
regard each as effective”). In reviewing an agency’s construction
of a statute, courts “must,” we have emphasized, “interpret the
statute ‘as a . . . coherent regulatory scheme’ ”
rather than an internally inconsistent muddle, at war with itself
and defective from the day it was written. Brown & Williamson,
529 U. S., at 133. And in doing so, courts should “[e]mplo[y]
traditional tools of statutory construction.” INS v.
Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U. S. 421, 446 (1987) . Each of these
cautions springs from a common well: As judicious as it can be to
defer to administrative agencies, our foremost duty is, and always
has been, to give effect to the law as drafted by Congress.

															     The plurality contends
that deference is appropriate here because, in its view, 8
U. S. C. §1153(h)(3)’s two clauses are
“self-contradictory.” Ante, at 33. But far from it being unworkable
(or even difficult) for the agency to obey both clauses,
traditional tools of statutory construction reveal that §1153(h)’s
clauses are entirely compatible.

															B

															     The plurality argues
that although §1153(h)(3)’s eligibility clause clearly encompasses
aged-out beneficiaries within all five preference categories, the
relief clause implies a conflicting “limitation on the eligible
class of recipients.” Ante, at 15. The plurality infers that
limitation from two premises. First, it contends that no aged-out
child may retain her priority date unless her petition is also
eligible for automatic conversion. And second, it asserts that only
aged-out F2A beneficiaries may receive automatic conversion. As a
result, the plurality concludes, it was reasonable for the BIA to
exclude aged-out children in the four other categories from
receiving both automatic conversion and priority date retention,
thereby rendering §1153(h)(3)’s eligibility clause defunct.

															     The plurality’s
conclusion is wrong because its premises are wrong. For one,
§1153(h)(3) is naturally read to confer priority date retention as
an independent form of relief to all aged-out children, regardless
of whether automatic conversion is separately available. And even
if that were wrong, the plurality’s supposition that only F2A
beneficiaries can receive automatic conversion is incorrect on its
own terms. Because either of these interpretations would treat
§1153(h)(3) as a coherent whole, the BIA’s construction was
impermissible.

															1

															     The most obvious flaw
in the plurality’s analysis is its presumption that §1153(h)(3)
permits an aged-out child to retain her original priority date only
if her petition canbe automatically converted. That is incorrect
for many reasons.

															     When an immigrant is
determined to have aged out of derivative beneficiary status,
§1153(h)(3) prescribes two forms of relief: “[T]he alien’s petition
shall automatically be converted to the appropriate category and
the alien shall retain the original priority date issued upon
receipt of the original petition.” We have held that when a statute
provides two forms of relief in this manner, joined by the
conjunction “and,” the two remedies are “distinct.” United States
v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235 –242 (1989). That
understanding makes particular sense here, where Congress used the
mandatory word “shall” twice, once before each form of relief. See
Lexecon Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, 523
U. S. 26, 35 (1998) (“[T]he mandatory [term] ‘shall’
. . . normally creates an obligation impervious to
judicial discretion”). Moreover, the two “shall” commands operate
on different subjects, further reinforcing that they prescribe
distinct remedies: An aged-out “alien’s petition shall
automatically be converted,” but it is “the alien” herself who, in
all events, “shall retain” her original priority date. §1153(h)(3)
(emphasis added).

															     The plurality responds
with a series of examples in which the word “and” is used to join
two commands, one of which is—as the plurality asserts
here—dependent on another. Ante, at 28, and n. 15. But as the
plurality recognizes, ante, at 28, that is hardly the only way the
word can be used. For example: “If today’s baseball game is rained
out, your ticket shall automatically be converted to a ticket for
next Saturday’s game, and you shall retain your free souvenir from
today’s game.” Or: “If you provide the DMV with proof of your new
address, your voter registration shall automatically be converted
to the correct polling location, and you shall receive in the mail
an updated driver’s license.” It is plain in both of these examples
that the two commands are distinct—the fan in the first example can
keep her free souvenir even if she cannot attend next Saturday’s
game; the new resident will receive an updated driver’s license
even if she is ineligible to vote. What the plurality does not
explain is why we should forgo the same understanding of
§1153(h)(3)’s relief clause when that would treat the statute as a
coherent whole (and when the plurality’s alternative interpretation
would render the statute a walking self-contradiction within the
span of a few words).

															     With the text
unavailing, the plurality turns to a policy argument. The plurality
worries that if automatic conversion and priority date retention
are independent benefits, aged-out beneficiaries will be able to
“hold on to a priority date for years . . . while waiting
for a relative to file a new petition,” which might hamper
U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) operations.
Ante, at 29–30. But the plurality’s fears of administrative
inconvenience are belied by the fact that USCIS has administered
prior-ity date retention in exactly this manner for years, with no
apparent problems. Well before §1153(h)(3) was enacted, a
regulation provided aged-out F2A derivative beneficiaries the
ability to retain their priority dates without also providing
automatic conversion. See 8 CFR §204.2(a)(4) (permitting priority
date retention after a “separate petition” is filed); 57 Fed. Reg.
41053, 41059 (1992) (adopting this provision). Indeed, the USCIS
continues to instruct field officers that a “separate petition”
must be filed in order for such beneficiaries to “retain” their
“original priority date[s].” Adjudicator’s Field Manual,
ch. 21.2(c)(5), online at
http://www.uscis.gov/iframe/ilink/docView/AFM/HTML/AFM/0-0-0-1.html
(all Internet materials as visited June 5, 2014, and available in
Clerk of Court’s case file). The notion that it is somehow
impossible for an immigrant to retain her priority date contingent
upon the filing of a separate petition is therefore contradicted by
years of agency experience.[ 4 ]

															     In the end, the
plurality suggests that we should defer to the BIA’s all-or-nothing
approach because “context compels” it. Ante, at 28. Yet fatally
absent from the plurality’s discussion of context is any mention of
the first clause of the very same provision, which, as the
plurality admits, unambiguously confers relief upon all five
categories of aged-out children. That clause is dispositive,
because—assuming that F2A beneficiaries alone can receive automatic
conversion—a reading that treats automatic conversion and priority
date retention as independent benefits is the only one that would
“produc[e] a substantive effect that is compatible with the rest of
the law.” United Sav. Assn. of Tex. v. Timbers of Inwood Forest
Associates, Ltd., 484 U. S. 365, 371 (1988) ; see also Home
Builders, 551 U. S., at 666 (“ ‘It is a “fundamental
canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be
read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall
statutory scheme” ’ ”).

															2

															     Even if it were
somehow impossible for an aged-out child to retain her priority
date independently of auto-matic conversion, the plurality is wrong
to view automatic conversion as a benefit that F2A beneficiaries
alone may enjoy.

															     Section 1153(h)(3)
provides that if an aged-out child qualifies for relief under the
statute’s eligibility clause, “the alien’s petition shall
automatically be converted to the appropriate category.” Whether an
aged-out beneficiary in a given preference category may enjoy this
relief turns on how one understands the words “automatically” and
“converted.” Because the statute does not define the terms, we
apply their ordinary meaning. See Burrage v. United States, 571
U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (slip op., at 6).

															     The ordinary meaning of
“automatic” is “ ‘having the capability of starting,
operating, moving, etc., independently’ ” based upon some
predetermined predicate event, with no “additional decisions,
contingencies, or delays.” Ante, at 15 (quoting Random House
Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 140 (2d ed. 2001)). The ordinary
meaning of “convert” is “to change (something) into a different
form.” Id., at 444. Here, the statute specifies the form into which
an aged-out child’s petition shall be changed: another petition in
the “appropriate category.” §1153(h)(3). Tying the terms together,
then, “automatic conversion” means changing an old petition into a
new petition in an appropriate category upon the occurrenceof some
predicate event, without a further decision or contingency.

															     All aged-out
beneficiaries can have their petitions automatically converted
under this definition. Perhaps most sensibly, all five categories
of petitions may be converted to an appropriate category, without
any further decision or contingency, upon a logical predicate
event: when USCIS receives confirmation that an appropriate
category exists. To see how this would work, recall the case of
Norma Uy, and her daughter, Ruth. Norma was the principal
beneficiary of an F4 petition filed by her U. S. citizen
sister; Ruth was a derivative beneficiary of the same petition.
Because Ruth had aged out of derivative beneficiary status prior to
Norma’s reaching the front of the visa line, Norma immigrated to
the United States without Ruth. Once Norma became an LPR, however,
she also became eligible to file a new petition on Ruth’s behalf
underthe F2B category (unmarried adult children of LPRs),
§1153(a)(2)(B). Thus, once Norma provides confirmation of that
eligibility to sponsor Ruth (i.e., that she is an LPR, that Ruth is
her daughter, and that she has not committed disqualifying criminal
conduct, see ante, at 4), Ruth’s original F4 petition can
automatically be converted to an F2B petition, with no additional
decision or contingency.[ 5 ]

															     Indeed, this is how
USCIS already applies automatic conversion in other contexts. For
example, when an LPR has filed an F2A petition on behalf of a
spouse or child, and the LPR subsequently becomes a U. S.
citizen, a provision entitled “[a]utomatic conversion of preference
classification,” 8 CFR §204.2(i), permits the F2A petition to be
automatically converted to an “immediate relative” petition,
§204.2(i)(3). See ante, at 16. Significantly, the predicate event
that triggers this conversion is the agency’s receipt of proof that
the petition’s sponsor has become a U. S. citizen—proof, in
other words, that there is an appropriate category into which the
petition can be converted.[ 6 ]
Section 1153(h)(3)’s automatic conversion remedy can sensibly be
administered in the same way.

															     The plurality’s
contrary conclusion that automatic conversion is impossible for all
but one category of family-preference petitions hinges on three
basic misunderstandings. First, the plurality contends that
automatic conversion is triggered not by confirmation of the
existence of an appropriate category, but rather by a different
predicate event: the moment when “ ‘an immigrant visa number
bec[omes] available for the alien’s parent.’ ” Ante, at 19.
This is a curious argument, not least because nothing in
§1153(h)(3) suggests it. That provision simply makes automatic
conversion available “[i]f the age of an alien is determined” to be
“be 21 years of age or older” for pur-poses of §1153(d). Section
1153(h)(3) thus states the condition that an immigrant must satisfy
to be eligible for automatic conversion, but it nowhere commands
when the conversion should occur. There is no reason why conversion
cannot occur at the logical point just described: the moment when
USCIS receives proof that an appropriate category exists.

															     The plurality
acknowledges that §1153(h)(3) “does not explicitly identify th[e]
point in time” at which a “petition is to be ‘converted.’ ”
Ante, at 18. It nevertheless suggests that the date when a
conversion occurs “is best viewed” as the date when a visa became
available for the aged-out child’s parent. Ante, at 19. But
Congress could not have intended conversion to occur at that point
for a glaring reason: The date on which a visa becomes available
for an aged-out child’s parent occurs before the point at which the
child is determined to have aged-out under §1153(d)—the very
requirement §1153(h)(3) prescribes for the aged-out child to be
eligible for automatic conversion in the first place. As the
plurality explains, ante, at 5–6, such age determinations occur
when an immigration official reviews the child’s derivative visa
application, which invariably happens after a visa became available
for the child’s parent as the principal beneficiary. At best, then,
the plurality’s interpretation requires USCIS to convert petitions
at a time when it does not know which petitions are eligible for
conversion; at worst, it requires the automatic conversion of
petitions benefiting immigrants who will never even qualify for
such relief (i.e., aged-out immigrants who, for any number of
reasons, never file a visa application and so are never determined
by officials to be older than 21).

															     Faced with this fact,
the plurality falls back to the position that automatic conversion
must merely be viewed as having occurred “as of th[e]
. . . date” when a parent’s visa becomes available,
although the actual “assess[ment]” of the conversion will
necessarily occur at some future point in time. Ante, at 24, n. 13.
That approach, however, introduces precisely the kind of
“additional decisions, contingencies, and delays” that the
plurality regards as inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of
“automatic,” ante, at 15. For even under the plurality’s view,
automatic conversion cannot actually be “assesse[d]” until and
unless the aged-out child decides to apply for a visa and officials
assessing the child’s application deem her to have aged out (events
which may themselves be contingent on the child’s parent first
filing her own successful visa application, see ante, at 6). The
far simpler approach is for conversion to occur automatically upon
the most logical moment suggested by the statute: the moment when
USCIS confirms that an “appropriate category” exists, §1153(h)(3).
Indeed, the plurality fails to explain why this cannot be the
proper predicate; it simply dismisses such an approach as supported
“only” by “a single-minded resolve . . . to grant relief
to every possible aged-out beneficiary.” Ante, at 25, n. 13. But
that criticism is revealing: The “single-minded resolve” the
plurality maligns is Congress’ own, for it is Congress that
expressly provided, in the eligibility clause, for aged-out
beneficiaries in all five categories to be granted relief.

															     The plurality’s second
argument is a corollary of its first. If automatic conversion must
occur when a visa first becomes available for a parent, the
plurality frets, that will mean an aged-out child will have her
petition automatically converted before immigration officials can
ascertain whether her parent is even qualified to sponsor her. See
ante, at 17–18. True enough, but that only confirms that it makes
no sense to force USCIS to convert petitions so prematurely. The
plurality’s fears can all be averted by having automatic conversion
occur, as with petitions sponsored by LPRs who later become
U. S. citizens, supra, at 13–15, when USCIS receives
confirmation that conversion is appropriate.[ 7 ]

															     The plurality’s final
argument is that something about the term “conversion” precludes
relief for all but the aged-out derivative beneficiaries of F2A
petitions. The plurality accepts that “conversion” will always
require changing some aspects of a petition, including its
preference category (e.g., from F2A to F2B) and the identity of its
principal beneficiary (e.g., from an aged-out child’s parent to the
child). But the plurality asserts that a related kind of change is
entirely off the table: a change to the identity of the petition’s
sponsor. Ante, at 15. If a converted petition requires a different
sponsor than the original petition, the plurality suggests, then it
cannot be “converted” at all.

															     The plurality points to
nothing in the plain meaning of “conversion” that supports this
distinction. It instead argues that a “conversion” cannot entail a
change to the identity of a petition’s sponsor because that is “the
exclusive way immigration law used the term when Congress enacted
the CSPA.” Ante, at 16. But immigration law has long allowed
petitions to be converted from one category to another in contexts
where doing so requires changing the sponsor’s identity. In 2006,
for example, the Secretary of Homeland Security promulgated a
regulatory provision entitled “automatic conversion of preference
classification,” 8 CFR §204.2(i)(1)(iv), which allows the automatic
conversion of a petition filed by a U. S. citizen on behalf of
her spouse to a widower petition if the citizen dies before the
petition is approved. That conversion requires changing the sponsor
from the citizen to the widower himself. The fact that the agency
used the word “conversion” to refer to a process in which the
petition’s sponsor was changed, just a few years after 8
U. S. C. §1153(h)(3) was enacted, strongly suggests that
the term did not have the exclusive meaning that the plurality
suggests. Similarly, §1154(a)(1)(D)(i)(III), a provision enacted
two years before §1153(h)(3), see Victims of Trafficking and
Violence Protection Act of 2000, 114Stat. 1522, provides that a
petition filed by a battered spouse on behalf of her child “shall
be considered” a self-petition filed by the child herself if the
child ages out—a conversion that obviously requires changing the
identity of the sponsor from the battered spouse to the aged-out
child. And §1153(h)(4) confirms that such “self-petitioners” are
entitled to §1153(h)(3)’s automatic conversion remedy. The
plurality never explains how it can be mandatory to “convert” the
identity of the sponsors in these contexts yet impermissible to
“convert” the sponsors of the petitions at issue here—an
understanding that is especially implausible in light of Congress’
command that such petitions “shall automatically be converted to
the appropriate category.” §1153(h)(3).[ 8 ]

															III

															     The concurrence
reaches the same result as the plural-ity does, but for a different
reason. It begins by recognizing that §1153(h)(3)’s eligibility
clause “states a condition” that is satisfied by aged-out
“beneficiaries from any preference category.” Ante, at 2 (Roberts,
C. J., concurring in judgment). The concurrence thus
acknowledges that the eligibility clause encompasses aged-out
beneficiaries of family-preference petitions in the F1, F2A, F2B,
F3, and F4 categories.

															     The concurrence
nonetheless concludes that the BIA was free to exclude F1, F2B, F3,
and F4 beneficiaries from the clear scope of the eligibility clause
because of a perceived ambiguity as to which beneficiaries can
receive “automatic conversion.” See ante, at 4 (“Congress did not
speak clearly to which petitions can  ‘automatically be
converted’ ”). In other words, the concurrence concludes that
it was reasonable for the agency to ignore the clear text of the
eligibility clause because the phrase “automatic conversion” might
be read in a manner that would benefit F2A beneficiaries alone.

															     This is an unusual way
to interpret a statute. The concurrence identifies no case in which
we have deferred to an agency’s decision to use ambiguity in one
portion of a statute as a license to ignore another statutory
provision that is perfectly clear. To the contrary, “[a] provision
that may seem ambiguous in isolation is often clarified by the
remainder of the statutory scheme . . . because only one
of the permissible meanings produces a substantive effect that is
compatible with the rest of the law.” United Sav. Assn. of Tex.,
484 U. S., at 371.

															     The concurrence
justifies its conclusion only by treating the eligibility clause as
a nullity. The concurrence is quite candid about its approach,
arguing that §1153(h)(3)’s relief clause is its “only operative
provision” and that the eligibility clause does not “grant anything
to anyone.” Ante, at 3. Yet “[i]t is our duty ‘to give effect, if
possible, to every clause and word of a statute.’ ” United
States v. Menasche, 348 U. S. 528 –539 (1955). And there is an
easy way to give meaning to the eligibility clause: The clause
identifies who is entitled to the benefits specified in the ensuing
relief clause.

															     The concurrence relies
ultimately on an irrelevant hypothetical: “If a student is
determined to be enrolled at an accredited university, the
student’s cost of off-campus housing shall be deductible on her tax
return.” Ante, at 3. In this example, the concurrence points out,
it is “apparent. . . that an enrolled student who lives
on campus is not entitled to the deduction, even though the student
falls within the conditional first clause.” Ibid. That is correct,
but it says nothing about this case. For in the hypothetical, it is
plain that the promised relief (a tax deduction for off-campus
housing) cannot apply to the persons at issue (students who live on
campus). Here, however, the relief promised in §1153(h)(3)
(priority date retention and automatic conversion) can be given to
persons specified inthe initial eligibility clause (aged-out
children in all five family-preference categories). See supra, at
9–19. And once one recognizes that aged-out children in each
cate-gory unambiguously covered by the eligibility clause can
receive relief, the BIA’s view that no children in four of those
categories can ever receive any relief cannot be
reasonable.[ 9 ]

															*  *  *

															     Congress faced a
difficult choice when it enacted §1153(h)(3). Given the “zero-sum
world of allocating a limited number of visas,” ante, at 33,
Congress could have required aged-out children like Ruth Uy to lose
their place in line and wait many additional years (or even
decades) before being reunited with their parents, or it could have
enabled such immigrants to retain their place in line—albeit at the
cost of extending the wait for other immigrants by some shorter
amount. Whatever one might think of the policy arguments on each
side, however, this much is clear: Congress made a choice. The
plurality’s contrary view—that Congress actually delegated the
choice to the BIA in a statute that unambiguously encompasses
aged-out children in all five preference categories and commands
that they “shall retain the[ir] original priority date[s],”
§1153(h)(3)—is untenable.

															     In the end, then, this
case should have been resolved under a commonsense approach to
statutory interpretation: Using traditional tools of statutory
construction, agencies and courts should try to give effect to a
statute’s clear text before concluding that Congress has legislated
in conflicting and unintelligible terms. Here, there are
straightforward interpretations of §1153(h)(3) that allow it to
function as a coherent whole. Because the BIA and the Court ignore
these interpretations and advance a construction that contravenes
the language Congress wrote, I respectfully dissent. Notes 1 The five categories are
F1 (unmarried adult children of U. S. citizens); F2A (spouses
and unmarried minor children of LPRs); F2B (unmarried adult
children of LPRs); F3 (married children of U. S. citizens);
and F4 (brothers and sisters of U. S. citizens). 8
U. S. C. §§1153(a)(1)–(4). 2 As the plurality
explains, at 9–10, the formula specified in paragraph (1) subtracts
out bureaucratic delays resulting from the Government’s review of
the relevant immigration paperwork. That formula is not at issue in
this case. 3 To understand the kind of
conflict that can make deference appropriate to an agency’s
decision to override unambiguous statutory text, consider the
provisions at issue in v. , . One provision, §402(b) of the Clean
Water Act, , commanded, “without qualification, that the
[Environmental Protection Agency] ‘shall approve’ a transfer
application” whenever nine exclusive criteria were satisfied. 551
U. S., at 661. A second provision, §7(a)(2) of the Endangered
Species Act of 1973, , was “similarly imperative,” ordering “
‘[e]ach Federal agency’ ” to ensure that its actions were “ ‘not
likely to jeopardize’ ” an endangered species. 551 U. S., at
662. “[A]pplying [§7(a)(2)’s] language literally,” we observed,
would contravene the “mandatory and exclusive list of [nine]
criteria set forth in §402(b),” because it would “engraf[t] a tenth
criterion onto” the statute. ., at 662–663. The agency accordingly
could not “simultaneously obey” both commands: It could consider 9
criteria or 10, but not both. ., at 666. In that circumstance, we
found it appropriate to defer to the agency’s choice as to “which
command must give way.” 4 The plurality does not
dispute that USCIS has administered priority date retention as a
form of relief independent from automatic conversion for years. at
30, n. 16. It nonetheless argues that the same approach is
impermissible here for the counterintuitive reason that a
pre-existing regulation used express language limiting priority
date retention to derivative beneficiaries of F2A petitions alone.
See at 30, n. 16(noting that 8 CFR §204.2(a)(4) permitted an
aged-out beneficiary to retain her priority date “ ‘if the
subsequent petition is filed by the same petitioner’ ”).
Congress included no such language to limit the scope of priority
date retention in , however, which just reinforces what the
eligibility clause already makes clear: Priority date retention is
independently available for aged-out de-rivative beneficiaries of
all family-preference petitions, not just F2A
petitions. 5 Of course, just like any
other beneficiary of a family visa petition, one whose petition has
been automatically converted must still satisfy the requirements
for actually obtaining a visa. See at 5. For example, all visa
applicants must attach an “affidavit of support” from their
sponsors. . As is true for any other beneficiary, nothing stops a
sponsor from declining to swear their support for the beneficiary
of an automatically converted petition after a visa has become
available. Converting petitions upon proof of an appropriate
category therefore produces no uncertainties or contingencies that
do not already exist for all family visa applicants to begin
with. 6 See Dept. of State, If
You Were an LPR and Are Now a U. S. Citizen: Upgrading a Petition,
online at
http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_2991.html#5.
The regulation cited by the plurality, 8 CFR §204.2(i), is not to
the contrary; it merely establishes that when an automatic
conversion occurs, it shall be treated as “[e]ffective upon the
date of naturalization,” §204.2(i)(3). As the State Department’s
instructions make clear, the conversion itself takes place after
the new citizen “send[s] proof of [her] U. S. citizenship to
the National Visa Center.” Dept. of State, If You Were an LPR and
Are Now a U. S. Citizen: Upgrading a Petition. 7 The plurality is
unsatisfied with this approach to automatic conversion on the
theory that, in order to eliminate all additional “decisions,
contingencies, or delays” in the process, this solution postpones
the moment of “conversion” until the necessary contingencies are
satisfied. Yet the plurality’s approach does the same thing,
because even on its account, some “decisions, contingencies, or
delays” must occur before conversion can actually be assessed by
immigration officials ( a parent’s visa must become available, the
child must apply for a visa, and immigration officials must deem
her to have aged out, see , at 16). So the only question is whether
the “conversion” should be considered to occur after all
“decisions, contingencies, or delays” are in the past such that
there is an appropriate category for conversion, or after only
some. The former understanding would allow the unambiguous language
of the eligibility clause to be carried into effect; the latter
would preclude relief for four categories of derivative
beneficiaries. In support of its restrictive interpretation, the
plurality offers only the argument that converting a petition upon
proof of an appropriate category would require the “filing of a new
document. . . that shows the parent’s eligibility to
sponsor her aged-out [child].” , at 26, n. 14. The fact that a
statute may require an agency to process a form is not a reason to
disregard a coherent reading of a statute in favor of a
self-contradictory one. 8 Moreover, had Congress
actually intended to permit relief only where a new petition has
the same sponsor as the original petition, it had a ready model in
the language of a pre-existing regulation. See 8 CFR §204.2(a)(4)
(conferring priority date retention on a derivative beneficiary
only “if the subsequent petition is filed by the same petitioner”).
If it had wanted to limit §1153(h)(3) to just the beneficiaries
preferred by the BIA, “Congress could easily have said so.” v. ,
. 9 More fundamentally, the
concurrence’s hypothetical is irrelevant because it altogether
ignores a critical feature of the statute before us: §1153(h)(2)’s
express enumeration of the covered petitions to include petitions
filed within the F1, F2A, F2B, F3, and F4 preference categories.
See at 5–6. A proper analogy would therefore be a provision that
says the following: “If a student is determined to be enrolled at
an accredited junior college, community college, or 4-year college,
the student’s room and board shall be tax-deductible and the
student shall receive financial aid.” Is there any permissible
reading of this provision under which, although expressly covered
in the eligibility clause, all junior and community college
students are categorically forbidden to receive the tax deduction
and financial aid? Of course not. And that would be true even if
the term “room and board” were ambiguous and thus open to an
interpretation under which only 4-year students could receive the
tax deduction. Likewise here, where F1, F2B, F3, and F4 derivative
beneficiaries may not be categorically excluded from relief because
they are indisputably covered by §1153(h)(3)’s eligibility clause
and able to receive the relief described in the relief
clause.

Summary: The Supreme Court ruled that the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) grants a remedy to all aliens who have "aged out" of the immigration process, not just those who are principal beneficiaries of a visa petition. This means that minor children of visa applicants who turn 21 while waiting for their visa to be processed are still eligible for the same immigration status and order of consideration as their parent. The Court's decision ensures that the time spent processing immigration papers will not count against the beneficiary's status, but they may still age out due to the time spent waiting for a visa to become available.