Cite as: 538 U. S. 510 (2003)
Opinion of Souter, J.
tionally hospitable, has been accorded a generous and ascending scale of rights as he increases his identity with our society. . . . [A]t least since 1886, we have extended to the person and property of resident aliens important constitutional guaranties—such as the due process of law of the Fourteenth Amendment").
The law therefore considers an LPR to be at home in the United States, and even when the Government seeks removal, we have accorded LPRs greater protections than other aliens under the Due Process Clause. In Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U. S. 21 (1982), we held that a long-term resident who left the country for a brief period and was placed in exclusion proceedings upon return was entitled to claim greater procedural protections under that Clause than aliens seeking initial entry. The LPR's interest in remaining in the United States is, we said, "without question, a weighty one." Id., at 34. See also Rosenberg v. Fleuti, 374 U. S. 449 (1963); Kwong Hai Chew, supra.
Although LPRs remain subject to the federal removal power, that power may not be exercised without due process, and any decision about the requirements of due process for an LPR must account for the difficulty of distinguishing in practical as well as doctrinal terms between the liberty interest of an LPR and that of a citizen.8 In evaluating Kim's challenge to his mandatory detention under 8 U. S. C. § 1226(c), the only reasonable starting point is the traditional doctrine concerning the Government's physical confinement of individuals.9
8 This case provides no occasion to determine the constitutionality of mandatory detention of aliens other than LPRs.
9 The statement that "[i]n the exercise of its broad power over naturalization and immigration, Congress regularly makes rules that would be unacceptable if applied to citizens," Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U. S. 67, 79-80 (1976), cannot be read to leave limitations on the liberty of aliens unre-viewable. Ante, at 521-522. Diaz involved a federal statute that limited eligibility for a federal medical insurance program to United States citizens and LPRs who had been continuously resident in the United States
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