After he was apprehended on March 15, 2008, near El Paso, within a few days of wading across the Rio Grande into Texas, Jorge Heriberto Duarte, a Mexican national, pled guilty to illegal reentry ^[1] on June 19, 2008, and on August 29 he received a sentence of forty-six months’ imprisonment, at the low end of the range advised under the federal sentencing guidelines. A previous drug felony, which led to a brief prison term and then removal in May 2007, dramatically increased Duarte’s sentencing range under the Guidelines. ^[2]

Duarte appeals his sentence, arguing that it was substantively unreasonable, that the inconsistent availability of “fast-track” programs that decrease some federal sentences leads to arbitrary and unlawful sentencing disparities, and that his within-Guidelines sentence is not entitled to our presumption of reasonableness ^[3] in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Kimbrough, ^[4]

I

In his central argument, Duarte asserts that the fact that his previous crime factored into his Guidelines range not only on his Criminal History Category but also on his offense level indicates an unjust “double-counting” of the old crime. He argues that the dramatically heightened punishment meted out upon reentering deportees convicted of certain predicate offenses is unsupported by empirical study and evidentiary reliability. Citing language from the Supreme Court’s judgment in Kimbrough that highlighted a lack of empirical support for crack versus powder cocaine sentencing disparities as a factor supporting the district judge’s discretionary downward departure in that case, Duarte claims that an examination of a Sentencing Guideline’s empirical basis is now indispensable before appellate courts can apply a presumption of reasonableness to within-Guidelines sentences imposed by district judges. In essence, Duarte asks us to remove the presumption of reasonableness as to this and other allegedly nonempirieally-grounded provisions of the Guidelines.

As the government points out, numerous panels of this court have faced and rejected arguments similar to Duarte’s, ^[5] but only after briefing was completed in this case did a published opinion on point issue, United States v. Mondragon-Santiago. ^[6] Another published opinion, United States v. Campos-Maldonado, ^[7] also sheds some light. The question was subject only to plain error review in Campos-Maldonado and Mondragon-Santiago, 8 whereas[*530] Duarte has preserved his objection, but here the difference is of no moment.

Duarte argues with some force that the sixteen-level enhancement provided for illegal re-enterers who commit certain crimes can lead to excessive sentences for some defendants. He does not, however, point to any law suggesting how this possibility of unjust sentences — a persistent possibility under any system of sentencing and, more to the point, under any form of appellate review of sentencing — gives us authority to overturn the presumption of reasonableness that this court applies to within-Guidelines sentences.

Intervening Supreme Court guidance, of course, could provide an avenue for our panel to revisit court precedent, but Duarte rests too much on the thin reed of Kimbrough, particularly reading Kimbrough in light of Rita, which, expressly approves circuit courts’ presumption of reasonableness for Guidelines sentences. ^[9] It is true that the Kimbrough Court “recognized that certain Guidelines do not take account of empirical data and national experience,” ^[10] but absent further instruction from the Court, we cannot read Kimbrough to mandate wholesale, appellate-level reconception of the role of the Guidelines and review of the methodologies of the Sentencing Commission. ^[11] Whatever appropriate deviations it may permit or encourage at the discretion of the district judge, Kimbrough does not force district or appellate courts into a piece-by-piece analysis of the empirical grounding behind each part of the sentencing guidelines. To the contrary, rather than aggrandizing appellate courts and sanctioning analysis from on high, the thrust of recent Supreme Court decisions has been to affirm[*531] the traditional entrustment of sentencing to the discretion of district courts, close to the ground and more cognizant of the details of offender and offense that should be determinative of sentence. Indeed, the very district court cases that Duarte cites in his critique of the re-entry sentencing guidelines are exemplary of how district courts use their discretion to apply guidelines to particular facts. ^[12]

II

As Duarte acknowledges, the argument that disparities in the availability of “fast track” programs among federal districts requires that sentences be adjusted in the absence of “fast track” possibilities is foreclosed by precedent on this circuit, ^[13] so we do not consider it further.

Duarte provides no real grounds to doubt the reasonableness of his sentence. The district judge, before whom Duarte had previously appeared, considered Duarte’s case carefully, including the arguments Duarte raised at sentencing. Upon examination of the record, we do not find that the sentence was unreasonable.

We AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.