What if the fate of an immigrant hinged on how the Supreme Court interprets the words "not" and "or"? In the case of Campos-Chaves v. Garland, the intricacies of immigration law and English connectives collide in the courtroom. Moris Campos-Chaves, a gardener from El Salvador, faces deportation due to a missed hearing, which he argues he wasn't properly notified about. At the crux of the debate is a baffling passage in the law: "he did not receive notice in accordance with paragraph (1) or (2)". Do these words describe someone who received one notice but not the other? Or do they describe someone who received neither one? In an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court in a pro bono capacity (joint work with Brandon Waldon, Masoud Jasbi, Willow Parks, and Cleo Condoravdi), we argue that this is a case of scopal ambiguity and analyze it through the lens of QUD theory (Roberts 1996) ---an ambiguity which could give Campos-Chaves, and hundreds of other immigrants, another chance to avoid deportation.
This case not only hinges on compositional semantics, but also on lexical semantics and on pragmatics. Thus, another relevant question is whether or not setting a time that was previously listed only as "TBD" counts as a "change" in time. Looming in the background, and very much on the current Court's minds, is the debate about contextualism vs purposivism: whether courts should consider lawmaker intent when they interpret statutory texts. I will open the meeting with a 30-minute presentation briefly describing these aspects of the case. Starting at 10am, we will tune in to live audio of the oral argument.
Handout