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Opinion of the Court
rules that would be unacceptable if applied to citizens.' " 430 U. S., at 792 (quoting Mathews v. Diaz, supra, at 79-80). Respondents do not dispute that Congress has the authority to detain aliens suspected of entering the country illegally pending their deportation hearings, see Carlson v. Landon, 342 U. S. 524, 538 (1952); Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U. S., at 235. And in enacting the precursor to 8 U. S. C. § 1252(a), Congress eliminated any presumption of release pending deportation, committing that determination to the discretion of the Attorney General. See Carlson v. Landon, supra, at 538-540. Of course, the INS regulation must still meet the (unexacting) standard of rationally advancing some legitimate governmental purpose—which it does, as we shall discuss later in connection with the statutory challenge.
Respondents also argue, in a footnote, that the INS release policy violates the "equal protection guarantee" of the Fifth Amendment because of the disparate treatment evident in (1) releasing alien juveniles with close relatives or legal guardians but detaining those without, and (2) releasing to unrelated adults juveniles detained pending federal delinquency proceedings, see 18 U. S. C. § 5034, but detaining un-accompanied alien juveniles pending deportation proceedings. The tradition of reposing custody in close relatives and legal guardians is in our view sufficient to support the former distinction; and the difference between citizens and aliens is adequate to support the latter.
IV
We turn now from the claim that the INS cannot deprive respondents of their asserted liberty interest at all, to the "procedural due process" claim that the Service cannot do so on the basis of the procedures it provides. It is well established that the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in deportation proceedings. See The Japanese Immigrant Case, 189 U. S. 86, 100-101 (1903). To determine whether these alien juveniles have received it here, we must
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