Overview
- At a University of Kansas law event this week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized a colleague’s description of immigration stops as only temporary, a clear reference to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurrence on a Los Angeles case.
- That case stemmed from a Sept. 8, 2025 Supreme Court emergency order that paused lower-court limits on ICE interior sweeps, issued without a full opinion on what is often called the shadow docket.
- Justice Kavanaugh wrote that questioning of people who are legally in the U.S. is typically brief and that they may go free after confirming their status, a framing Sotomayor said ignores real-world costs for hourly workers who miss paid time.
- Immigration lawyers report clients being tackled or held by officers during these encounters, which some advocates have begun calling “Kavanaugh stops,” underscoring a clash between courtroom theory and street-level practice.
- A right-leaning Federalist column says Sotomayor’s public critique and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s sharp dissents complicate Justice Elena Kagan’s efforts to broker narrower deals, reflecting a broader fight over emergency rulings and court norms.