Stone v. INS, 514 U.S. 386, 12 (1995)

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Cite as: 514 U. S. 386 (1995)

Opinion of the Court

v. Provident Consumer Discount Co., 459 U. S. 56, 61 (1982) (per curiam). Our decision, based on a construction of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(4), noted the "theoretical inconsistency" of permitting the district court to retain jurisdiction to decide the Rule 59 motion while treating the notice of appeal as "adequate for purposes of beginning the appeals process." Griggs, supra, at 59.

We need not confirm the correctness of the Wade decision, but neither should we go out of our way to say it is incorrect, as petitioner and the dissent would have us do. The inconsistency in petitioner's construction of § 106(a)(6) is the same inconsistency that we noted in Griggs. Petitioner assumes that a reconsideration motion renders the underlying order nonfinal if the motion is filed before a petition for review, but that finality is unaffected if the reconsideration motion is filed one day after the petition for review. It is implausible that Congress would direct different results in the two circumstances. At any rate, under petitioner's construction the consolidation provision would have effect only in the rarest of circumstances.

When Congress acts to amend a statute, we presume it intends its amendment to have real and substantial effect. See Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 339 (1979) (Court must construe statute to give effect, if possible, to every provision); Moskal v. United States, 498 U. S. 103, 109-111 (1990) (same). Had Congress intended review of INS orders to proceed in a manner no different from review of other agencies, as petitioner appears to argue, there would have been no reason for Congress to have included the consolidation provision. The reasonable construction is that the amendment was enacted as an exception, not just to state an already existing rule. Section 106(a)(6) is an explicit exception to the general applicability of the Hobbs Act procedures, so it must be construed as creating a procedure different from normal practice under the Act. We conclude, as did the Court of Appeals, see 13 F. 3d, at 938, and the Seventh

397

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