Demore v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510, 65 (2003)

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574

DEMORE v. KIM

Opinion of Souter, J.

leased on "modest bonds or personal recognizances" pending their deportation proceedings. Id., at 538, n. 31. Contrary to the Court's holding today, the Carlson Court understood that discretion to admit to bail was necessary, since "[o]f course [a] purpose to injure [the United States] could not be imputed generally to all aliens subject to deportation." Id., at 538. It was only in this light that the Court said that the INS could "justify [its] refusal of bail by reference to the legislative scheme to eradicate the evils of Communist activity"; the Court was referring to the INS's power to detain on a finding that a given alien was engaged in Communist activity that threatened society. Id., at 543. The Court nowhere addressed, much less approved, the notion that the INS could justify, or that Congress could compel, an individual's detention without any determination at all that his detention was necessary to some Government purpose. And if there was ever any doubt on this point, it failed to survive our subsequent, unanimous recognition that the detention scheme in Carlson required "some level of individualized determination" as a precondition to detention. INS v. National Center for Immigrants' Rights, Inc., 502 U. S. 183, 194-195 (1991); see also Flores, 507 U. S., at 313. Carlson stands at odds with the Court's outcome in this case.

2

The Court's paragraph on Flores, supra, is no more help to it. Like Carlson, Flores did not involve mandatory detention, and the INS regulation at issue in Flores actually required that alien juveniles be released pending removal proceedings unless the INS determined that detention was required " 'to secure [the juvenile's] timely appearance before the [INS] or the immigration court or to ensure the juvenile's safety or that of others.' " 507 U. S., at 297 (quoting 8 CFR § 242.24(b)(1) (1992)). Again, Kim agrees that such a system is constitutional and contends for it here. Flores turned not on the necessity of detention, but on the regulation's restric-

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