Cite as: 538 U. S. 510 (2003)
Opinion of Souter, J.
that Kim's is the stronger claim, see supra, at 554-556. In any case, the analytical framework set forth in Salerno, Foucha, Hendricks, Jackson, and other physical confinement cases applies to both, and the two differences the Court relies upon fail to remove Kim's challenge from the ambit of either the earlier cases or Zadvydas itself.16
First, the Court says that § 1226(c) "serves the purpose of preventing deportable criminal aliens from fleeing prior to or during their removal proceedings." Ante, at 528. Yes it does, and the statute in Zadvydas, viewed outside the context of any individual alien's detention, served the purpose of preventing aliens ordered to be deported from fleeing prior to actual deportation. In each case, the fact that a statute serves its purpose in general fails to justify the detention of an individual in particular. Some individual aliens covered by § 1226(c) have meritorious challenges to removability or claims for relief from removal. See Brief for Citizens and Immigrants for Equal Justice et al. as Amici Curiae 10-20. As to such aliens, as with Zadvydas and Ma, the Government has only a weak reason under the immigration laws for detaining them.
The Court appears to respond that Congress may require detention of removable aliens based on a general conclusion that detention is needed for effective removal of criminal aliens on a class-wide basis. But on that logic Zadvydas should have come out the other way, for detention of the entire class of aliens who have actually been ordered removed will in general "serv[e] the purpose" of their effective removal, ante, at 528. Yet neither the Court nor Justice Kennedy in dissent suggested that scrutiny under the Due Process Clause could be satisfied at such a general level. Rather, we remanded the individual cases of Zadvydas and Ma for determinations of the strength of the Government's
16 The Court tellingly does not even mention Salerno, Foucha, Hendricks, or Jackson.
561
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