A helpful reader kindly pointed out to me an interesting little Third Circuit victory hidden in last week’s Supreme Court ruling in Pereira v. Sessions that Chevron deference does not apply to an immigration-statute provision involving cancellation of removal.

Back in 2016, the Third Circuit faced the same question in Orozco-Velasquez. The petitioner argued that he was entitled to cancellation of removal, and that the BIA’s ruling compelling the opposite result was not entitled to Chevron deference. At least six circuits had held that the BIA’s ruling was entitled to Chevron deference, and none had held that it wasn’t.

But the Third Circuit split with them all.

Orozco-Velasquez held that the BIA’s ruling didn’t get Chevron deference, explicitly disagreeing with the other circuits, and ruled for the petitioner. The opinion was authored by Judge Roth and joined by Judges McKee and Ambro.

In last week’s Supreme Court ruling, the Third Circuit was vindicated. Justice Kennedy’s concurrence explains (emphasis mine):

The first Courts of Appeals to encounter the question concluded or assumed that the notice necessary to trigger the stop-time rule found in 8 U. S. C. §1229b(d)(1) was not “perfected” until the immigrant received all the information listed in §1229(a)(1). Guamanrrigra v. Holder, 670 F. 3d 404, 410 (CA2 2012) (per curiam); see also Dababneh v. Gonzales, 471 F. 3d 806, 809 (CA7 2006); Garcia-Ramirez v. Gonzales, 423 F. 3d 935, 937, n. 3 (CA9 2005) (per curiam).

That emerging consensus abruptly dissolved not long after the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) reached a contrary interpretation of §1229b(d)(1) in Matter of Camarillo, 25 I. & N. Dec. 644 (2011). After that administrative ruling, in addition to the decision under review here, at least six Courts of Appeals, citing Chevron, concluded that §1229b(d)(1) was ambiguous and then held that the BIA’s interpretation was reasonable. See Moscoso-Castellanos v. Lynch, 803 F. 3d 1079, 1083 (CA9 2015); O’Garro v. United States Atty. Gen., 605 Fed. Appx. 951, 953 (CA11 2015) (per curiam); Guaman-Yuqui v. Lynch, 786 F. 3d 235, 239–240 (CA2 2015) (per curiam); Gonzalez-Garcia v. Holder, 770 F. 3d 431, 434–435 (CA6 2014); Yi Di Wang v. Holder, 759 F. 3d 670, 674–675 (CA7 2014); Urbina v. Holder, 745 F. 3d 736, 740 (CA4 2014). But see Orozco-Velasquez v. Attorney General United States, 817 F. 3d 78, 81–82 (CA3 2016). The Court correctly concludes today that those holdings were wrong because the BIA’s interpretation finds little support in the statute’s text.

Don’t mess with the Third Circuit.