The US Supreme Court granted certiorari Monday in Niz-Chavez v. Barr to consider the type of notice the government must provide to trigger the “stop-time rule.”

Essentially, immigrants who have a continuous physical presence in the US for a certain amount of time may be eligible for relief from removal. However, the government is able to prevent the accrual of time by providing notice that deportation proceedings are pending.

Congress passed the “stop-time rule” to prevent non-citizens from benefiting from delays in the removal process. Under the rule, the government must send the non-citizen a “notice to appear.” The notice must contain specific information about a scheduled removal proceeding.

In this case, Agusto Niz-Chavez came to the US from Guatemala in 2005. He contends that the government cannot trigger the stop-time rule when it provides the necessary information for notice in several different documents.

According to the Niz-Chaves’s petition for a writ of certiorari, the circuit courts are divided on the issue.