Court Battles

Sotomayor apologizes to Kavanaugh over remarks on his immigration stop opinion

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by Zach Schonfeld - 04/15/26 6:07 PM ET

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by Zach Schonfeld - 04/15/26 6:07 PM ET

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Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor publicly apologized to Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Wednesday for her comments at a recent talk criticizing his opinion concerning the Trump administration’s immigration stops.

“At a recent appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law, I referred to a disagreement with one of my colleagues in a prior case, but I made remarks that were inappropriate,” Sotomayor said in a statement. “I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague.”

During last week’s appearance, Sotomayor had reportedly criticized Kavanaugh for his defense of his vote last September to lift limits on the Trump administration’s immigration stops in the Los Angeles area. The limits blocked stops based on a person speaking Spanish or working in a certain profession.

In a solo opinion, Kavanaugh emphasized the stops are “brief” and immigration officers “promptly” let go anyone found to have legal status. It sparked an uproar from Trump’s critics, who’ve accused the Supreme Court of effectively greenlighting racial profiling. Many began dubbing them “Kavanaugh stops.”

“I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops,” Sotomayor said at her talk last week in Kansas, according to 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’s comments come amid a blitz of public appearances by the justices in between their March and April argument sessions.

Speaking to law students at the University of Alabama later in the week, Sotomayor insisted most of the justices “actually like each other” when asked how she builds bridges with her colleagues.

“They may care about different issues than I do a bit more, but in terms of human values, we share the same ones,” Sotomayor said.

“And I don’t define them by their worst ideas,” she added with a laugh. “As human beings, I look to them as people to have a relationship with them. And I dare say that with virtually all of them, I certainly have a civil relationship. And with many of them, I think I dare say that I have friendship.”

The Supreme Court returns for its April session on Friday, when the justices are expected to hand down at least one opinion in a pending case.

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