Cite as: 507 U. S. 292 (1993)
Stevens, J., dissenting
on the question whether the INS has legitimately exercised the discretion that the relevant statute has granted to the Attorney General. In order to avoid the constitutional question, I believe we should first address that statutory issue. In the alternative, as I shall explain, I would hold that a rule providing for the wholesale detention of juveniles for an indeterminate period without individual hearings is unconstitutional.
II
Section 242(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides that any "alien taken into custody may, in the discretion of the Attorney General and pending [a] final determination of deportability, (A) be continued in custody; or (B) be released under bond . . . containing such conditions as the Attorney General may prescribe; or (C) be released on conditional parole." 8 U. S. C. § 1252(a)(1). Despite the exceedingly broad language of § 242(a), the Court has recognized that "once the tyranny of literalness is rejected, all relevant considerations for giving a rational content to the words become operative." United States v. Witkovich, 353
Mfrs. Assn. of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co., 463 U. S. 29, 43 (1983) ("[A]n agency rule would be arbitrary and capricious if the agency has relied on factors which Congress has not intended it to consider, entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem, offered an explanation for its decision that runs counter to the evidence before the agency, or is so implausible that it could not be ascribed to a difference in view or the product of agency expertise"). Respondents brought such a claim in the District Court, but do not renew that line of argument in this Court. In any event, even if the INS has managed to stay within the bounds of the APA, there is nonetheless a disturbing parallel between the Court's ready conclusion that no individualized hearing need precede the deprivation of liberty of an undocumented alien so long as the conditions of institutional custody are "good enough," ante, at 305, and similar post hoc justifications for discrimination that is more probably explained as nothing more than "the accidental byproduct of a traditional way of thinking about" the disfavored class, see Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U. S. 199, 223 (1977) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment).
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