320
Opinion of the Court
gress made some provisions of IIRIRA expressly applicable to prior convictions, but did not do so in regard to § 304(b), is an indication "that Congress did not definitively decide the issue of § 304's retroactive application to pre-enactment convictions." See 229 F. 3d, at 415. The "saving provision" is therefore no more significant than the specification of an effective date.
The presumption against retroactive application of ambiguous statutory provisions, buttressed by "the longstanding principle of construing any lingering ambiguities in deportation statutes in favor of the alien," INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U. S. 421, 449 (1987), forecloses the conclusion that, in enacting § 304(b), "Congress itself has affirmatively considered the potential unfairness of retroactive application and determined that it is an acceptable price to pay for the countervailing benefits." 44 Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 272-273. We therefore proceed to the second step of Landgraf's retroactivity analysis in order to determine whether depriving removable aliens of consideration for § 212(c) relief produces an impermissible retroactive effect for aliens who, like respondent, were convicted pursuant to a plea agreement at a time when their plea would not have rendered them ineligible for § 212(c) relief.45
felony," deal with subjects quite closely related to § 304(b)'s elimination of § 212(c) relief for aliens convicted of aggravated felonies.
44 The legislative history is significant because, despite its comprehensive character, it contains no evidence that Congress specifically considered the question of the applicability of IIRIRA § 304(b) to pre-IIRIRA convictions. Cf. Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U. S. 578, 602 (1980) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (" 'In a case where the construction of legislative language such as this makes so sweeping and so relatively un-orthodox a change as that made here, I think judges as well as detectives may take into consideration the fact that a watchdog did not bark in the night' "), cited in Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U. S., at 396, n. 23 (citing A. Doyle, Silver Blaze, in The Complete Sherlock Holmes 335 (1927)).
45 The INS argues that we should extend deference under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), to the BIA's interpretation of IIRIRA as applying to all de-
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