U.S. Supreme Court holding in MONSALVO VELÁZQUEZ v. BONDI
Debate/dispute about whether Petitioner acted within a certain deadline. The U.S. Supreme Court wrote:
In legal settings, the term “days” is often understood to extend deadlines falling on a weekend or legal holiday to the next business day. Various federal rules reflect this understanding. See, e.g., Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 6(a)(1)(C). As do our own. See this Court’s Rule 30(1). The Ninth Circuit and the immigration judge in this case thought §1229c(b)(2) of a piece with that practice. See supra, at 2, 5. The question before us thus boils down to whether §1229c(b)(2) uses the term “days” in its ordinary or specialized sense.
To resolve that question, we turn to one of this Court’s customary interpretive tools. When Congress adopts a new law against the backdrop of a “longstanding administrative construction,” this Court generally presumes the new provision should be understood to work in harmony with what has come before. Haig v. Agee, 453 U. S. 280, 297–298 (1981); accord, United States v. Hill, 506 U. S. 546, 553–554 (1993); FDIC v. Philadelphia Gear Corp., 476 U. S. 426, 437 (1986).
That presumption is all but dispositive here. For many years, Congress has authorized the executive branch to draw up regulations to enforce the immigration laws. See 8 U. S. C. §1103(a)(3). And since at least the 1950s, those regulations have provided that, when calculating the deadline for the “taking of any action,” the term “day” carries its specialized meaning by excluding Sundays and legal holidays if a deadline would otherwise fall on one of those days. 8 CFR §1.1(a)(6) (1958) (emphasis added). In all the years since, the only notable change to this rule has been the addition of Saturdays to the list of excluded days. 52 Fed. Reg. 2935 (1987).
As we see it, §1229c(b)(2)’s deadline works like others found in §304 of IIRIRA—and so many others in immigration law. Here, as elsewhere, the term “days” operates to extend a deadline that falls on a weekend or legal holiday to the next business day.