FLORES-FIGUEROA v. UNITED STATES

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Syllabus
FLORES-FIGUEROA v. UNITED STATES
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the eighth circuit
No. 08–108. Argued February 25, 2009—Decided May 4, 2009
A federal statute forbidding “[a]ggravated identity theft” imposes a man
datory consecutive 2-year prison term on an individual convicted of cer
tain predicate crimes if, during (or in relation to) the commission of
those other crimes, the offender “knowingly . . . uses, without lawful
authority, a means of identification of another person.” 18 U. S. C.
§ 1028A(a)(1) (emphasis added). After petitioner Flores-Figueroa, a
Mexican citizen, gave his employer counterfeit Social Security and alien
registration cards containing his name but other people’s identification
numbers, he was arrested and charged with two immigration offenses
and aggravated identity theft. Flores moved for acquittal on the latter
charge, claiming that the Government could not prove that he knew that
the documents’ numbers were assigned to other people. The District
Court agreed with the Government that the word “knowingly” in
§ 1028A(a)(1) does not modify the statute’s last three words, “of another
person,” and, after trial, found Flores guilty on all counts. The Eighth
Circuit affirmed.
Held: Section 1028A(a)(1) requires the Government to show that the de
fendant knew that the means of identification at issue belonged to an
other person. As a matter of ordinary English grammar, “knowingly”
is naturally read as applying to all the subsequently listed elements of
the crime. Where a transitive verb has an object, listeners in most
contexts assume that an adverb (such as “knowingly”) that modifies the
verb tells the listener how the subject performed the entire action, in
cluding the object. The Government does not provide a single example
of a sentence that, when used in typical fashion, would lead the hearer
to a contrary understanding. And courts ordinarily interpret criminal
statutes consistently with the ordinary English usage. See, e. g., Lipar
ota v. United States, 471 U. S. 419. The Government argues that this
position is incorrect because it would either require the same language
to be interpreted differently in a neighboring provision or would render
the language in that provision superfluous. This argument fails for two
reasons. Finally, the Government’s arguments based on the statute’s
purpose and on the practical problems of enforcing it are not sufficient
to overcome the ordinary meaning, in English or through ordinary inter
pretive practice, of Congress’ words. Pp. 650–657.
274 Fed. Appx. 501, reversed and remanded.

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Opinion of the Court
Breyer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J.,
and Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Scalia, J.,
filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in
which Thomas, J., joined, post, p. 657. Alito, J., filed an opinion concur
ring in part and concurring in the judgment, post, p. 659.
Kevin K. Russell argued the cause for petitioner. With
him on the briefs were Amy Howe, Thomas C. Goldstein,
Pamela S. Karlan, and Jeffrey L. Fisher.
Toby J. Heytens argued the cause for the United States.
With him on the brief were then-Acting Solicitor General
Kneedler, Acting Assistant Attorney General Glavin, Dep
uty Solicitor General Dreeben, and William C. Brown.*
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court.
A federal criminal statute forbidding “[a]ggravated iden
tity theft” imposes a mandatory consecutive 2-year prison
term upon individuals convicted of certain other crimes if,
during (or in relation to) the commission of those other
crimes, the offender “knowingly transfers, possesses, or
uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of
another person.” 18 U. S. C. § 1028A(a)(1) (emphasis added).
The question is whether the statute requires the Govern
ment to show that the defendant knew that the “means of
identification” he or she unlawfully transferred, possessed,
or used, in fact, belonged to “another person.” We conclude
that it does.
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Advocates
for Human Rights et al. by Nancy Morawetz; for the Electronic Privacy
Information Center et al. by Marc Rotenberg; for the Mexican American
Legal Defense and Educational Fund et al. by Lois D. Thompson; for the
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers by Sri Srinivasan,
Irving L. Gornstein, and Pamela Harris; and for Professors of Criminal
Law by Iris E. Bennett.
Stephen V. Masterson filed a brief for the Maryland Crime Victims’ Re
source Center, Inc., et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.
Neal Goldfarb filed a brief for Professors of Linguistics as amici curiae.

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648 FLORES-FIGUEROA v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of the Court
I
A
The statutory provision in question references a set of
predicate crimes, including, for example, theft of government
property, fraud, or engaging in various unlawful activities
related to passports, visas, and immigration. § 1028A(c).
It then provides that if any person who commits any of those
other crimes (in doing so) “knowingly transfers, possesses,
or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of
another person,” the judge must add two years’ imprison
ment to the offender’s underlying sentence. § 1028A(a)(1).
All parties agree that the provision applies only where the
offender knows that he is transferring, possessing, or using
something. And the Government reluctantly concedes that
the offender likely must know that he is transferring, pos
sessing, or using that something without lawful authority.
But they do not agree whether the provision requires that a
defendant also know that the something he has unlawfully
transferred is, for example, a real ID belonging to another
person rather than, say, a fake ID (i. e., a group of numbers
that does not correspond to any real Social Security number).
Petitioner Ignacio Flores-Figueroa argues that the statute
requires that the Government prove that he knew that the
“means of identification” belonged to someone else, i. e., was
“a means of identification of another person.” The Govern
ment argues that the statute does not impose this particular
knowledge requirement. The Government concedes that
the statute uses the word “knowingly,” but that word, the
Government claims, does not modify the statute’s last phrase
(“a means of identification of another person”) or, at the least,
it does not modify the last three words of that phrase (“of
another person”).
B
The facts of this case illustrate the legal problem. Ignacio
Flores-Figueroa is a citizen of Mexico. In 2000, to secure

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employment, Flores gave his employer a false name, birth
date, and Social Security number, along with a counterfeit
alien registration card. The Social Security number and the
number on the alien registration card were not those of a
real person. In 2006, Flores presented his employer with
new counterfeit Social Security and alien registration cards;
these cards (unlike Flores’ old alien registration card) used
his real name. But this time the numbers on both cards
were in fact numbers assigned to other people.
Flores’ employer reported his request to U. S. Immigra
tion and Customs Enforcement. Customs discovered that
the numbers on Flores’ new documents belonged to other
people. The United States then charged Flores with two
predicate crimes, namely, entering the United States without
inspection, 8 U. S. C. § 1325(a), and misusing immigration
documents, 18 U. S. C. § 1546(a). And it charged him with
aggravated identity theft, 18 U. S. C. § 1028A(a)(1), the crime
at issue here.
Flores moved for a judgment of acquittal on the “aggra
vated identity theft” counts. He claimed that the Govern
ment could not prove that he knew that the numbers on the
counterfeit documents were numbers assigned to other peo
ple. The Government replied that it need not prove that
knowledge, and the District Court accepted the Govern
ment’s argument. After a bench trial, the court found Flo
res guilty of the predicate crimes and aggravated identity
theft. The Court of Appeals upheld the District Court’s de
termination. 274 Fed. Appx. 501 (CA8 2008) (per curiam).
And we granted certiorari to consider the “knowledge”
issue—a matter about which the Circuits have disagreed.
Compare United States v. Godin, 534 F. 3d 51 (CA1 2008)
(knowledge requirement applies to “of another person”);
United States v. Miranda-Lopez, 532 F. 3d 1034 (CA9 2008)
(same); United States v. Villanueva-Sotelo, 515 F. 3d 1234
(CADC 2008) (same), with United States v. Mendoza-
Gonzalez, 520 F. 3d 912 (CA8 2008) (knowledge requirement

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does not apply to “of another person”); United States v. Hur
tado, 508 F. 3d 603 (CA11 2007) (per curiam) (same); United
States v. Montejo, 442 F. 3d 213 (CA4 2006) (same).
II
There are strong textual reasons for rejecting the Govern
ment’s position. As a matter of ordinary English grammar,
it seems natural to read the statute’s word “knowingly” as
applying to all the subsequently listed elements of the crime.
The Government cannot easily claim that the word “know
ingly” applies only to the statute’s first four words, or even
its first seven. It makes little sense to read the provision’s
language as heavily penalizing a person who “transfers, pos
sesses, or uses, without lawful authority” a something, but
does not know, at the very least, that the “something” (per
haps inside a box) is a “means of identification.” Would we
apply a statute that makes it unlawful “knowingly to possess
drugs” to a person who steals a passenger’s bag without
knowing that the bag has drugs inside?
The Government claims more forcefully that the word
“knowingly” applies to all but the statute’s last three words,
i. e., “of another person.” The statute, the Government
says, does not require a prosecutor to show that the defend
ant knows that the means of identification the defendant has
unlawfully used in fact belongs to another person. But how
are we to square this reading with the statute’s language?
In ordinary English, where a transitive verb has an object,
listeners in most contexts assume that an adverb (such as
knowingly) that modifies the transitive verb tells the listener
how the subject performed the entire action, including the
object as set forth in the sentence. Thus, if a bank official
says, “Smith knowingly transferred the funds to his broth
er’s account,” we would normally understand the bank offi
cial’s statement as telling us that Smith knew the account
was his brother’s. Nor would it matter if the bank official
said “Smith knowingly transferred the funds to the account

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of his brother.” In either instance, if the bank official later
told us that Smith did not know the account belonged to
Smith’s brother, we should be surprised.
Of course, a statement that does not use the word “know
ingly” may be unclear about just what Smith knows. Sup
pose Smith mails his bank draft to Tegucigalpa, which (per
haps unbeknownst to Smith) is the capital of Honduras. If
the bank official says, “Smith sent a bank draft to the capital
of Honduras,” he has expressed next to nothing about
Smith’s knowledge of that geographic identity. But if the
official were to say, “Smith knowingly sent a bank draft to
the capital of Honduras,” then the official has suggested that
Smith knows his geography.
Similar examples abound. If a child knowingly takes a
toy that belongs to his sibling, we assume that the child not
only knows that he is taking something, but that he also
knows that what he is taking is a toy and that the toy be
longs to his sibling. If we say that someone knowingly ate
a sandwich with cheese, we normally assume that the person
knew both that he was eating a sandwich and that it con
tained cheese. Or consider the Government’s own example,
“ ‘John knowingly discarded the homework of his sister.’ ”
Brief for United States 9. The Government rightly points
out that this sentence “does not necessarily” imply that John
knew whom the homework belonged to. Ibid. (emphasis
added). But that is what the sentence, as ordinarily used,
does imply.
At the same time, dissimilar examples are not easy to find.
The Government says that “knowingly” modifies only the
verbs in the statute, while remaining indifferent to the sub
ject’s knowledge of at least part of the transitive verb’s ob
ject. In certain contexts, a listener might understand the
word “knowingly” to be used in that way. But the Govern
ment has not provided us with a single example of a sentence
that, when used in typical fashion, would lead the hearer to
believe that the word “knowingly” modifies only a transitive

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verb without the full object, i. e., that it leaves the hearer
gravely uncertain about the subject’s state of mind in respect
to the full object of the transitive verb in the sentence. The
likely reason is that such sentences typically involve special
contexts or themselves provide a more detailed explanation
of background circumstances that call for such a reading.
As Justice Alito notes, the inquiry into a sentence’s mean
ing is a contextual one. See post, at 661 (opinion concurring
in part and concurring in judgment). No special context is
present here. See infra, at 654–657.
The manner in which the courts ordinarily interpret crimi
nal statutes is fully consistent with this ordinary English
usage. That is to say courts ordinarily read a phrase in a
criminal statute that introduces the elements of a crime with
the word “knowingly” as applying that word to each element.
United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U. S. 64, 79
(1994) (Stevens, J., concurring). For example, in Liparota
v. United States, 471 U. S. 419 (1985), this Court interpreted
a federal food stamp statute that said, “ ‘[w]hoever knowingly
uses, transfers, acquires, alters, or possesses coupons or au
thorization cards in any manner not authorized by [law]’ ”
is subject to imprisonment. Id., at 420, n. 1. The question
was whether the word “knowingly” applied to the phrase “in
any manner not authorized by [law].” Id., at 423. The
Court held that it did, id., at 433, despite the legal cliche
“ignorance of the law is no excuse.”
More recently, we had to interpret a statute that penalizes
“[a]ny person who—(1) knowingly transports or ships [using
any means or facility of] interstate or foreign commerce by
any means including by computer or mails, any visual depic
tion, if—(A) the producing of such visual depiction involves
the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct,” 18
U. S. C. § 2252(a)(1)(A). X-Citement Video, supra. In issue
was whether the term “knowingly” in paragraph (1) modified
the phrase “the use of a minor” in subparagraph (A). Id.,
at 69. The language in issue in X-Citement Video (like the

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language in Liparota) was more ambiguous than the lan
guage here not only because the phrase “the use of a minor”
was not the direct object of the verbs modified by “know
ingly,” but also because it appeared in a different subsection.
513 U. S., at 68–69. Moreover, the fact that many sex
crimes involving minors do not ordinarily require that a per
petrator know that his victim is a minor supported the Gov
ernment’s position. Nonetheless, we again found that the
intent element applied to “the use of a minor.” Id., at 72,
and n. 2. Again the Government, while pointing to what it
believes are special features of each of these cases, provides
us with no convincing counterexample, although there may
be such statutory instances.
The Government correctly points out that in these cases
more was at issue than proper use of the English language.
But if more is at issue here, what is it? The Government
makes a further textual argument, a complex argument
based upon a related provision of the statute. That provi
sion applies “[a]ggravated identity theft” where the predi
cate crime is terrorism. See § 1028A(a)(2). The provision
uses the same language as the provision before us up to the
end, where it adds the words “or a false identification docu
ment.” Thus, it penalizes anyone who “knowingly trans
fers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means
of identification of another person or a false identification
document.” Ibid.
The Government’s argument has four steps. Step One:
We should not interpret a statute in a manner that makes
some of its language superfluous. See, e. g., TRW Inc. v. An
drews, 534 U. S. 19, 31 (2001). Step Two: A person who
knows that he is transferring, possessing, or using a “ ‘means
of identification’ ” “ ‘without lawful authority,’ ” must know
that the document either (1) belongs “ ‘to another person’ ”
or (2) is a “ ‘false identification document’ ” because “ ‘there
are no other choices.’ ” Brief for United States 14 (emphasis
added). Step Three: Requiring the offender to know that

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the “means of identification” belongs to another person
would consequently be superfluous in this terrorism provi
sion. Step Four: We should not interpret the same phrase
(“of another person”) in the two related sections differently.
If we understand the argument correctly, it seems to
suffer two serious flaws. If the two listed circumstances
(where the ID belongs to another person; where the ID is
false) are the only two circumstances possibly present when
a defendant (in this particular context) unlawfully uses a
“means of identification,” then why list them at all? Why
not just stop after criminalizing the knowing unlawful use of
a “means of identification”? (Why specify that Congress
does not mean the statute to cover, say, the use of dog tags?)
The fact is, however, that the Government’s reasoning at
Step Two is faulty. The two listed circumstances are not
the only two circumstances possibly present when a defend
ant unlawfully uses a “means of identification.” One could,
for example, verbally provide a seller or an employer with a
made-up Social Security number, not an “identification doc
ument,” and the number verbally transmitted to the seller
or employer might, or might not, turn out to belong to an
other person. The word “knowingly” applied to the “other
person” requirement (even in a statute that similarly penal
izes use of a “false identification document”) would not be
surplus.
The Government also considers the statute’s purpose to be
a circumstance showing that the linguistic context here is
special. It describes that purpose as “provid[ing] enhanced
protection for individuals whose identifying information is
used to facilitate the commission of crimes.” Id., at 5. And
it points out that without the knowledge requirement, poten
tial offenders will take great care to avoid wrongly using IDs
that belong to others, thereby enhancing the protection that
the statute offers.
The question, however, is whether Congress intended to
achieve this enhanced protection by permitting conviction

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of those who do not know the ID they unlawfully use re
fers to a real person, i. e., those who do not intend to cause
this further harm. And, in respect to this latter point,
the statute’s history (outside of the statute’s language) is
inconclusive.
On the one hand, some statements in the legislative his
tory offer the Government a degree of support. The rele
vant House Report refers, for example, both to “identity
theft” (use of an ID belonging to someone else) and to “iden
tity fraud” (use of a false ID), often without distinguishing
between the two. See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 108–528, p. 25
(2004) (statement of Rep. Coble). And, in equating fraud
and theft, Congress might have meant the statute to cover
both—at least where the fraud takes the form of using an ID
that (without the offender’s knowledge) belongs to someone
else.
On the other hand, Congress separated the fraud crime
from the theft crime in the statute itself. The title of one
provision (not here at issue) is “Fraud and related activity
in connection with identification documents, authentication
features, and information.” 18 U. S. C. § 1028. The title of
another provision (the provision here at issue) uses the
words “identity theft.” § 1028A (emphasis added). More
over, the examples of theft that Congress gives in the legis
lative history all involve instances where the offender would
know that what he has taken identifies a different real
person. H. R. Rep. No. 108–528, at 4–5 (identifying as
examples of “identity theft” “ ‘dumpster diving,’ ” “accessing
information that was originally collected for an authorized
purpose,” “hack[ing] into computers,” and “steal[ing] paper
work likely to contain personal information”).
Finally, and perhaps of greatest practical importance,
there is the difficulty in many circumstances of proving be
yond a reasonable doubt that a defendant has the necessary
knowledge. Take an instance in which an alien who unlaw
fully entered the United States gives an employer identifi

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cation documents that in fact belong to others. How is the
Government to prove that the defendant knew that this was
so? The Government may be able to show that such a de
fendant knew the papers were not his. But perhaps the de
fendant did not care whether the papers (1) were real papers
belonging to another person or (2) were simply counterfeit
papers. The difficulties of proof along with the defendant’s
necessary guilt of a predicate crime and the defendant’s nec
essary knowledge that he has acted “without lawful author
ity,” make it reasonable, in the Government’s view, to read
the statute’s language as dispensing with the knowledge
requirement.
We do not find this argument sufficient, however, to turn
the tide in the Government’s favor. For one thing, in the
classic case of identity theft, intent is generally not difficult
to prove. For example, where a defendant has used another
person’s identification information to get access to that per
son’s bank account, the Government can prove knowledge
with little difficulty. The same is true when the defendant
has gone through someone else’s trash to find discarded
credit card and bank statements, or pretends to be from the
victim’s bank and requests personal identifying information.
Indeed, the examples of identity theft in the legislative
history (dumpster diving, computer hacking, and the like) are
all examples of the types of classic identity theft where in
tent should be relatively easy to prove, and there will be
no practical enforcement problem. For another thing, to
the extent that Congress may have been concerned about
criminalizing the conduct of a broader class of individuals,
the concerns about practical enforceability are insufficient to
outweigh the clarity of the text. Similar interpretations
that we have given other similarly phrased statutes also cre
ated practical enforcement problems. See, e. g., X-Citement
Video, 513 U. S. 64; Liparota, 471 U. S. 419. But had Con
gress placed conclusive weight upon practical enforcement,
the statute would likely not read the way it now reads. In

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Opinion of Scalia, J.
stead, Congress used the word “knowingly” followed by a
list of offense elements. And we cannot find indications in
statements of its purpose or in the practical problems of en
forcement sufficient to overcome the ordinary meaning, in
English or through ordinary interpretive practice, of the
words that it wrote.
We conclude that § 1028A(a)(1) requires the Government
to show that the defendant knew that the means of identifi
cation at issue belonged to another person. The judgment
of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia, with whom Justice Thomas joins, con
curring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Court that to convict petitioner for
“knowingly transfer[ring], possess[ing], or us[ing], without
lawful authority, a means of identification of another person,”
18 U. S. C. § 1028A(a)(1), the Government must prove that he
“knew that the ‘means of identification’ he . . . unlawfully
transferred, possessed, or used, in fact, belonged to ‘another
person.’ ” Ante, at 647. “Knowingly” is not limited to the
statute’s verbs, ante, at 650. Even the Government must
concede that. See United States v. Villanueva-Sotelo, 515
F. 3d 1234, 1237 (CADC 2008) (“According to the govern
ment, this text is unambiguous: the statute’s knowledge re
quirement extends only so far as ‘means of identification’ ”).
But once it is understood to modify the object of those verbs,
there is no reason to believe it does not extend to the phrase
which limits that object (“of another person”). Ordinary
English usage supports this reading, as the Court’s numer
ous sample sentences amply demonstrate. See ante, at 650–
651.
But the Court is not content to stop at the statute’s text,
and I do not join that further portion of the Court’s opinion.
First, the Court relies in part on the principle that “courts

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ordinarily read a phrase in a criminal statute that introduces
the elements of a crime with the word ‘knowingly’ as apply
ing that word to each element.” Ante, at 652. If that is
meant purely as a description of what most cases do, it
is perhaps true, and perhaps not. I have not canvassed all
the cases and am hence agnostic. If it is meant, however,
as a normative description of what courts should ordinarily
do when interpreting such statutes—and the reference to
Justice Stevens’ concurring opinion in United States v.
X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U. S. 64, 79 (1994), suggests as
much—then I surely do not agree. The structure of the text
in X-Citement Video plainly separated the “use of a minor”
element from the “knowingly” requirement, wherefore I
thought (and think) that case was wrongly decided. See id.,
at 80–81 (Scalia, J., dissenting). It is one thing to infer
the common-law tradition of a mens rea requirement where
Congress has not addressed the mental element of a crime.
See Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600, 605 (1994); United
States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U. S. 422, 437–438
(1978). It is something else to expand a mens rea require
ment that the statutory text has carefully limited.
I likewise cannot join the Court’s discussion of the (as
usual, inconclusive) legislative history. Ante, at 655. Rely
ing on the statement of a single Member of Congress or an
unvoted-upon (and for all we know unread) Committee Re
port to expand a statute beyond the limits its text suggests
is always a dubious enterprise. And consulting those incu
nabula with an eye to making criminal what the text would
otherwise permit is even more suspect. See United States
v. R. L. C., 503 U. S. 291, 307–309 (1992) (Scalia, J., concur
ring in part and concurring in judgment). Indeed, it is not
unlike the practice of Caligula, who reportedly “wrote his
laws in a very small character, and hung them up upon high
pillars, the more effectually to ensnare the people,” 1 W.
Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 46 (1765).

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Opinion of Alito, J.
The statute’s text is clear, and I would reverse the judg
ment of the Court of Appeals on that ground alone.
Justice Alito, concurring in part and concurring in the
judgment.
While I am in general agreement with the opinion of the
Court, I write separately because I am concerned that the
Court’s opinion may be read by some as adopting an overly
rigid rule of statutory construction. The Court says that
“[i]n ordinary English, where a transitive verb has an object,
listeners in most contexts assume that an adverb (such as
knowingly) that modifies the transitive verb tells the listener
how the subject performed the entire action, including the
object as set forth in the sentence.” Ante, at 650. The
Court adds that counterexamples are “not easy to find,” ante,
at 651, and I suspect that the Court’s opinion will be cited
for the proposition that the mens rea of a federal criminal
statute nearly always applies to every element of the offense.
I think that the Court’s point about ordinary English
usage is overstated. Examples of sentences that do not con
form to the Court’s rule are not hard to imagine. For exam
ple: “The mugger knowingly assaulted two people in the
park—an employee of company X and a jogger from town
Y.” A person hearing this sentence would not likely assume
that the mugger knew about the first victim’s employer or
the second victim’s hometown. What matters in this exam
ple, and the Court’s, is context.
More to the point, ordinary writers do not often construct
the particular kind of sentence at issue here, i. e., a complex
sentence in which it is important to determine from the sen
tence itself whether the adverb denoting the actor’s intent
applies to every characteristic of the sentence’s direct object.
Such sentences are a staple of criminal codes, but in ordinary
speech, a different formulation is almost always used when
the speaker wants to be clear on the point. For example, a
speaker might say: “Flores-Figueroa used a Social Security

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660 FLORES-FIGUEROA v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of Alito, J.
number that he knew belonged to someone else” or “Flores-
Figueroa used a Social Security number that just happened
to belong to a real person.” But it is difficult to say with
the confidence the Court conveys that there is an “ordinary”
understanding of the usage of the phrase at issue in this case.
In interpreting a criminal statute such as the one before
us, I think it is fair to begin with a general presumption that
the specified mens rea applies to all the elements of an of
fense, but it must be recognized that there are instances in
which context may well rebut that presumption. For exam
ple, 18 U. S. C. § 2423(a) makes it unlawful to “knowingly
transpor[t] an individual who has not attained the age of 18
years in interstate or foreign commerce . . . with intent that
the individual engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activ
ity for which any person can be charged with a criminal of
fense.” The Courts of Appeals have uniformly held that a
defendant need not know the victim’s age to be guilty under
this statute. See, e. g., United States v. Griffith, 284 F. 3d
338, 350–351 (CA2 2002); United States v. Taylor, 239 F. 3d
994, 997 (CA9 2001); cf. United States v. Chin, 981 F. 2d 1275,
1280 (CADC 1992) (R. Ginsburg, J.) (holding that 21 U. S. C.
§ 861(a)(1), which makes it unlawful to “knowingly and inten
tionally . . . employ, hire, use, persuade, induce, entice, or
coerce, a person under eighteen years of age to violate” drug
laws, does not require the defendant to have knowledge of
the minor’s age). Similarly, 8 U. S. C. § 1327 makes it unlaw
ful to “knowingly ai[d] or assis[t] any alien inadmissible
under section 1182(a)(2) (insofar as an alien inadmissible
under such section has been convicted of an aggravated fel
ony) . . . to enter the United States.” The Courts of Appeals
have held that the term “knowingly” in this context does
not require the defendant to know that the alien had been
convicted of an aggravated felony. See, e. g., United States
v. Flores-Garcia, 198 F. 3d 1119, 1121–1123 (CA9 2000);
United States v. Figueroa, 165 F. 3d 111, 118–119 (CA2 1998).

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661 Cite as: 556 U. S. 646 (2009)
Opinion of Alito, J.
In the present case, however, the Government has not
pointed to contextual features that warrant interpreting 18
U. S. C. § 1028A(a)(1) in a similar way. Indeed, the Govern
ment’s interpretation leads to exceedingly odd results.
Under that interpretation, if a defendant uses a made-up So
cial Security number without having any reason to know
whether it belongs to a real person, the defendant’s liability
under § 1028A(a)(1) depends on chance: If it turns out that
the number belongs to a real person, two years will be added
to the defendant’s sentence, but if the defendant is lucky and
the number does not belong to another person, the statute is
not violated.
I therefore concur in the judgment and join the opinion of
the Court except insofar as it may be read to adopt an inflex
ible rule of construction that can rarely be overcome by con
textual features pointing to a contrary reading.