Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticizes Supreme Court colleague for lacking self-awareness

Justice Sonia Sotomayor publicly criticized Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh for failing to understand the real-world impact of the administration's immigration enforcement policies.

Sotomayor, appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2009, spoke at the University of Kansas School of Law.

She criticized Kavanaugh's concurrence supporting an emergency order that paused lower court rulings indefinitely, allowing immigration agents to profile people based on language, occupation, race, and location, as reported by Bloomberg Law.

Sotomayor noted Kavanaugh characterized immigration stops as "temporary," suggesting his privileged background prevented him from understanding how, even brief detentions, harm hourly workers who lose income needed to feed their families. She criticized his concurrence for relegating citizens' and legal residents' interests to a single sentence.

Kavanaugh suggested "apparent ethnicity" as a "relevant factor" in immigration enforcement before attempting to walk back the remarks, though legal experts dismissed his clarification as insufficient given his earlier endorsement of racial profiling.

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