Sotomayor Questions Colleague on Immigration Stop Impacts

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor publicly questioned a colleague's understanding of immigration enforcement practices during a speech at the University of Kansas School of Law, highlighting the economic hardships faced by hourly workers detained in such operations.

Speaking on Tuesday to an audience of students and faculty, Sotomayor referenced a 2023 Supreme Court emergency order that temporarily paused lower court injunctions against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the Los Angeles area. The unsigned order, issued without a detailed majority opinion, allowed federal agents to resume stops based on factors including language spoken, occupation, apparent ethnicity, and location, such as workplaces or public transit sites. In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that such encounters for legal residents were typically brief investigative stops, with individuals released promptly if found to be citizens or lawfully present.

Sotomayor, who dissented in the case alongside Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, described the colleague's perspective without naming Kavanaugh directly. "I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these...