Cite as: 523 U. S. 224 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
Thus, at the time of the amendment, the operative language of subsection (a)'s ordinary reentering-alien provision said that a reentering alien "shall be guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof, be punished by imprisonment of not more than two years, or by a fine of not more than $1,000." The 1988 amendment, subsection (b), by way of contrast, referred only to punishment—an increased punishment for the felon, or the aggravated felon, whom subsection (a) has "described." Although one could read the language, "any alien described in [subsection (a)]," standing alone, as importing subsection (a)'s elements into new offenses defined in subsection (b), that reading seems both unusual and awkward when taken in context, for the reasons just given. Linguistically speaking, it seems more likely that Congress simply meant to "describe" an alien who, in the words of the 1988 statute, was "guilty of a felony" defined in subsection (a) and "convict[ed] thereof."
As the dissent points out, post, at 265, Congress later struck from subsection (a) the words just quoted, and added in their place the words, "shall be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than two years." See Immigration Act of 1990 (1990 Act), § 543(b)(3), 104 Stat. 5059. But this amendment was one of a series in the 1990 Act that uniformly updated and simplified the phrasing of various, disparate civil and criminal penalty provisions in the Immigration and Naturalization Act. See, e. g., 1990 Act, § 543(b)(1) (amending 8 U. S. C. § 1282(c)); § 543(b)(2)(C) (amending 8 U. S. C. § 1325); § 543(b)(4) (amending 8 U. S. C. § 1327); § 543(b)(5) (amending 8 U. S. C. § 1328). The section of the Act that contained the amendment is titled "Increase in Fine Levels; Authority of the INS to Collect Fines," and the relevant subsection, simply "Criminal Fine Levels." 1990 Act, § 543(b), 104 Stat. 5057, 5059. Although the 1990 amendment did have the effect of making the penalty provision in subsection (a) (which had remained unchanged since 1952) parallel with its counterparts in later enacted subsection (b),
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