533US2 Unit: $U87 [10-21-02 18:35:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN Cite as: 533 U. S. 678 (2001) 715 Kennedy, J., dissenting cal branches with respect to matters of national security.” Ante, at 696. Here the Court appears to rely on an assessment of risk, but this is the very premise it finds inadequate to sustain the natural reading of the statute. The Court ought not to reject a rationale in order to deny power to the Attorney General and then invoke the same rationale to save its own analysis. This rule of startling breadth invites potentially perverse results. Because other nations may refuse to admit aliens who have committed certain crimes—see, e. g., Brief for Petitioner in No. 99–7791, at 19 (“Lithuanian law precludes granting of citizenship to persons who, before coming to Lithuania, have been sentenced in another state to imprisonment for a deliberate crime for which criminal liability is imposed by the laws of the Republic of Lithuania” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted))—often the aliens who have committed the most serious crimes will be those who may be released immediately under the majority’s rule. An example is presented in the case of Saroeut Ourk, a Cambodian alien determined to be removable and held pending deportation. See Ourk v. INS, No. 00–35645 (CA9, Sept. 18, 2000), cert. pending, No. 00–987. Ourk was convicted of rape by use of drugs in conjunction with the kidnaping of a 13-year-old girl; after serving 18 months of his prison term, he was released on parole but was returned to custody twice more for parole violations. Pet. for Cert. in No. 00–987, pp. 4–5. When he was ordered deported and transferred to the custody of the INS, it is no surprise the INS determined he was both a flight risk and a danger to the community. Yet the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded, based on its earlier decision in Kim Ho Ma v. Reno, 208 F. 3d 815 (2000), that Ourk could no longer be held pending deportation, since removal to Cambodia was not reasonably foreseeable. App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 00–987, pp. 3a–4a. See also Phetsany v. INS, No. 00–16286 (CA9, Sept. 18, 2000), cert. pending, No. 00–986 (requiring release of a native and