Cite as: 533 U. S. 678 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
upheld preventive detention based on dangerousness only when limited to specially dangerous individuals and subject to strong procedural protections. Compare Hendricks, supra, at 368 (upholding scheme that imposes detention upon "a small segment of particularly dangerous individuals" and provides "strict procedural safeguards"), and Salerno, supra, at 747, 750-752 (in upholding pretrial detention, stressing "stringent time limitations," the fact that detention is reserved for the "most serious of crimes," the requirement of proof of dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence, and the presence of judicial safeguards), with Foucha, supra, at 81-83 (striking down insanity-related detention system that placed burden on detainee to prove nondangerousness). In cases in which preventive detention is of potentially indefinite duration, we have also demanded that the dangerousness rationale be accompanied by some other special circumstance, such as mental illness, that helps to create the danger. See Hendricks, supra, at 358, 368.
The civil confinement here at issue is not limited, but potentially permanent. Cf. Salerno, supra, at 747 (noting that "maximum length of pretrial detention is limited" by "strin-gent" requirements); Carlson v. Landon, 342 U. S. 524, 545- 546 (1952) (upholding temporary detention of alien during deportation proceeding while noting that "problem of . . . unusual delay" was not present). The provision authorizing detention does not apply narrowly to "a small segment of particularly dangerous individuals," Hendricks, supra, at 368, say, suspected terrorists, but broadly to aliens ordered removed for many and various reasons, including tourist visa violations. See 8 U. S. C. § 1231(a)(6) (1994 ed., Supp. V) (referencing § 1227(a)(1)(C)); cf. Hendricks, 521 U. S., at 357- 358 (only individuals with "past sexually violent behavior and a present mental condition that creates a likelihood of such conduct in the future" may be detained). And, once the flight risk justification evaporates, the only special cir-
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