U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has publicly expressed regret for comments she made that were perceived as critical towards a fellow justice. On Wednesday, she issued a formal apology through a statement from the court, acknowledging that her earlier remarks may have been “hurtful.” The comments in question appeared to target Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s stance on immigration enforcement.
Justice Sotomayor’s original remarks were made during an appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law. Although she did not directly name Kavanaugh, she critiqued his understanding of a court decision that permitted the continuation of immigration enforcement activities in Los Angeles. This decision was encapsulated in an unsigned order from the previous year, which she believed did not fully consider its real-world implications.
She referenced a particular case, Noem v. Perdomo, in which Kavanaugh had contributed a concurring opinion. Sotomayor expressed concern over his perspective, pointing out his description of these immigration stops as “only temporary.” This case, decided by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 vote in September, allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to justify stops based on “apparent race or ethnicity” and work location in California.
During her remarks, Sotomayor commented, “This is from a man whose parents were professionals and probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour,” suggesting a disconnect between Kavanaugh’s background and the experiences of hourly workers affected by such enforcement actions.
In his opinion on the case, Kavanaugh noted that interactions between legal residents and immigration officers are “typically brief,” asserting that those who can prove their legal status in the U.S. are usually free to go shortly thereafter. His perspective highlighted a belief in the procedural efficiency of these encounters, contrasting with the concerns raised by Sotomayor.
In his concurring opinion on the Sept. 8, 2025 stay, Kavanaugh wrote that legal residents’ encounters with immigration agents are “typically brief, and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are US citizens or otherwise legally in the United States.”
Sotomayor, who filed the dissenting opinion, alleged in her remarks at KU that Kavanaugh failed to grasp that even short detentions can have major “financial consequences” for hourly workers despite him citing the legal reasoning of immigration stops being longstanding and based on reasonable suspicion.
She added her “life experiences” taught her how to “think more broadly and to see things others may not,” seemingly in reference to racial profiling as the first Hispanic justice.
In a statement released by the Supreme Court Wednesday, Sotomayor said she “referred to a disagreement with one of my colleagues in a prior case” but “made remarks that were inappropriate.”
“I regret my hurtful comments,” she wrote in the statement. “I have apologized to my colleague.”
