694
Opinion of the Court
Clause protects an alien subject to a final order of deportation, see Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U. S. 228, 238 (1896), though the nature of that protection may vary depending upon status and circumstance, see Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U. S. 21, 32-34 (1982); Johnson, supra, at 770.
In Wong Wing, supra, the Court held unconstitutional a statute that imposed a year of hard labor upon aliens subject to a final deportation order. That case concerned substantive protections for aliens who had been ordered removed, not procedural protections for aliens whose removability was being determined. Cf. post, at 704 (Scalia, J., dissenting). The Court held that punitive measures could not be imposed upon aliens ordered removed because "all persons within the territory of the United States are entitled to the protection" of the Constitution. 163 U. S., at 238 (citing Yick Wo, supra, at 369 (holding that equal protection guarantee applies to Chinese aliens)); see also Witkovich, 353 U. S., at 199, 201 (construing statute which applied to aliens ordered deported in order to avoid substantive constitutional problems). And contrary to Justice Scalia's characterization, see post, at 703-705, in Mezei itself, both this Court's rejection of Mezei's challenge to the procedures by which he was deemed excludable and its rejection of his challenge to continued detention rested upon a basic territorial distinction. See Mezei, supra, at 215 (holding that Mezei's presence on Ellis Island was not "considered a landing" and did "not affec[t]" his legal or constitutional status (internal quotation marks omitted)).
In light of this critical distinction between Mezei and the present cases, Mezei does not offer the Government signifi-cant support, and we need not consider the aliens' claim that subsequent developments have undermined Mezei's legal authority. See Brief for Petitioner in No. 99-7791, p. 23; Brief for Respondent in No. 00-38, pp. 16-17; Brief for Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights as Amicus Curiae in No. 00-38, pp. 15-20. Nor are we aware of any other authority that would support Justice Kennedy's limitation of
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