Opinion of the Court
they recognize are presumptively enforceable under §1983.
C
Even if a statutory provision unambiguously secures rights, a defendant “may defeat t[he] presumption by demonstrating that Congress did not intend” that §1983 be available to enforce those rights. Rancho Palos Verdes, 544 U. S., at 120.[1] For evidence of such intent, we have looked to “the statute creating the right.” Ibid. A statute could, of course, expressly forbid §1983’s use. Fitzgerald, 555 U. S., at 252; Rancho Palos Verdes, 544 U. S., at 120. Absent such a sign, a defendant must show that Congress issued the same command implicitly, by creating “a ‘comprehensive enforcement scheme that is incompatible with individual enforcement under §1983.’ ” Id., at 120. Only the latter path is at issue here.
1
Our precedent outlines what HHC must show to traverse the implicit-preclusion path. “ ‘The crucial consideration’ ” is whether “Congress intended a statute’s remedial scheme to ‘be the exclusive avenue through which a plaintiff may assert [his] claims.’ ” Fitzgerald, 555 U. S., at 252 (quoting Smith v. Robinson, 468 U. S. 992, 1009, 1012 (1984) (emphasis added)); Fitzgerald, 555 U. S., at 252 (framing “ ‘[t]he
- ↑ The “ ‘rebuttable presumption’ ” that our cases describe, Rancho Palos Verdes, 544 U. S., at 120, is not an artificially onerous court-made hurdle. It merely reflects what §1983’s plain text commands: The §1983 remedy is available to vindicate federal individual rights “secured by … la[w].” In other words, the presumption recognizes that, even where Congress has unambiguously secured certain federal individual rights by law, it may have simultaneously given good reason (detectable with ordinary interpretive tools) to conclude that the §1983 remedy is not available for those rights, even though it “generally” is. Gonzaga, 536 U. S., at 284, and n. 4. And it also recognizes that it is the defendant’s burden to show that a right otherwise secured by law is not §1983 enforceable. Rancho Palos Verdes, 544 U. S., at 120; Gonzaga, 536 U. S., at 284, and n. 4.
