Opinion of the Court
ing it a crime “to induce, assist, encourage, or solicit, or attempt to induce, assist, encourage, or solicit the importation or migration of any contract laborer … into the United States”). Like “encourage,” the word “induce” carried solicitation and facilitation overtones at the time of this enactment. See Black’s Law Dictionary 617 (1891) (defining “inducement” to mean “that which leads or tempts to the commission of crime”). In fact, Congress had just recently used the term in a catchall prohibition on criminal facilitation. See Act of Mar. 4, 1909, §332, 35 Stat. 1152 (“Whoever … aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces, or procures [the commission of an offense], is a principal” (emphasis added)). And as with “encourage,” the meaning of “induce” was clarified and narrowed by its statutory neighbors in the 1917 Act—“assist” and “solicit.”
Congress enacted the immediate forerunner of the modern clause (iv) in 1952 and, in doing so, simplified the language from the 1917 Act. Most notably, the 1952 version dropped the words “assist” and “solicit,” instead making it a crime to “willfully or knowingly encourag[e] or induc[e], or attemp[t] to encourage or induce, either directly or indirectly, the entry into the United States of … any alien … not lawfully entitled to enter or reside within the United States.” Immigration and Nationality Act, §274(a)(4), 66 Stat. 229. Three decades later, Congress brought 8 U. S. C. §1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) into its current form—still without the words “assist” or “solicit.” Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, §112(a), 100 Stat. 3382 (making it a crime to “encourag[e] or induc[e] an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law”).
On Hansen’s view, these changes dramatically broadened the scope of clause (iv)’s prohibition on encouragement. Before 1952, he says, the words “assist” and “solicit” may have cabined “encourage” and “induce,” but eliminating them
