U.S. Supreme Court
Sotomayor criticizes Kavanaugh over immigration stops concurrence
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor attends a conversation at George Washington University in March 2024. (Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday criticized another member of the high court for failing to understand the consequences of an order issued last year allowing immigration enforcement sweeps in Los Angeles to resume.
“I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops,” Sotomayor said during an event hosted by the University of Kansas School of Law, according to a story by Bloomberg Law. “This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.”
Sotomayor was apparently referencing a concurrence written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh to go along with an unsigned Sept. 8 emergency order issued without a majority rationale. In the order, the justices paused lower court rulings temporarily barring immigration agents from targeting people based solely on their language, occupation, race or presence at certain locations, such as car washes or bus stops.
In his concurrence, Kavanaugh asserted that legal residents’ encounters with immigration agents are “typically brief,” and impacted people “promptly go free.”
Sotomayor didn’t name Kavanaugh during her remarks, but she suggested that the financial consequences of even short detentions can be significant, particularly for hourly workers, Bloomberg Law reported.
“Those hours that they took you away, nobody’s paying that person,” she said. “And that makes a difference between a meal for him and his kids that night and maybe just cold supper.”
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