308
Opinion of the Court
The INS notifies the alien of the commencement of a deportation proceeding and of the decision as to custody by serving him with a Form I-221S (reprinted in App. to Brief for Petitioners 7a-8a) which, pursuant to the Immigration Act of 1990, 8 U. S. C. § 1252b(a)(3)(A) (1988 ed., Supp. III), must be in English and Spanish. The front of this form notifies the alien of the allegations against him and the date of his deportation hearing. The back contains a section entitled "NOTICE OF CUSTODY DETERMINATION," in which the INS officer checks a box indicating whether the alien will be detained in the custody of the Service, released on recognizance, or released under bond. Beneath these boxes, the form states: "You may request the Immigration Judge to redetermine this decision." See 8 CFR § 242.2(c)(2) (1992). (The immigration judge is a quasi-judicial officer in the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a division separated from the Service's enforcement staff. § 3.10.) The alien must check either a box stating "I do" or a box stating "[I] do not request a redetermination by an Immigration Judge of the custody decision," and must then sign and date this section of the form. If the alien requests a hearing and is dissatisfied with the outcome, he may obtain further review by the Board of Immigration Appeals, § 242.2(d); § 3.1(b)(7), and by the federal courts, see, e. g., Carlson v. Landon, supra, at 529, 531.
Respondents contend that this procedural system is unconstitutional because it does not require the Service to determine in the case of each individual alien juvenile that detention in INS custody would better serve his interests than release to some other "responsible adult." This is just the "substantive due process" argument recast in "procedural due process" terms, and we reject it for the same reasons.
The District Court and the en banc Court of Appeals concluded that the INS procedures are faulty because they do not provide for automatic review by an immigration judge of the initial deportability and custody determinations. See
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