Cite as: 538 U. S. 510 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
the four Courts of Appeals that have held § 1226(c) to be unconstitutional, relies heavily upon our recent opinion in Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U. S. 678 (2001).
In Zadvydas, the Court considered a due process challenge to detention of aliens under 8 U. S. C. § 1231 (1994 ed., Supp. V), which governs detention following a final order of removal. Section 1231(a)(6) provides, among other things, that when an alien who has been ordered removed is not in fact removed during the 90-day statutory "removal period," that alien "may be detained beyond the removal period" in the discretion of the Attorney General. The Court in Zadvydas read § 1231 to authorize continued detention of an alien following the 90-day removal period for only such time as is reasonably necessary to secure the alien's removal. 533 U. S., at 699.
But Zadvydas is materially different from the present case in two respects.
First, in Zadvydas, the aliens challenging their detention following final orders of deportation were ones for whom removal was "no longer practically attainable." Id., at 690. The Court thus held that the detention there did not serve its purported immigration purpose. Ibid. In so holding, the Court rejected the Government's claim that, by detaining the aliens involved, it could prevent them from fleeing prior to their removal. The Court observed that where, as there, "detention's goal is no longer practically attainable, detention no longer bears a reasonable relation to the purpose for which the individual was committed." Ibid. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).10
In the present case, the statutory provision at issue governs detention of deportable criminal aliens pending their
10 The dissent denies this point, insisting that the detention at issue in Zadvydas actually did bear a reasonable relation to its immigration purpose. Post, at 561 (opinion of Souter, J.) ("[T]he statute in Zadvydas . . . served the purpose of preventing aliens . . . from fleeing prior to actual deportation").
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