Sonia Sotomayor apologizes for ‘hurtful’ public comments about Brett Kavanaugh on immigration
By John Fritze, CNN
(CNN) — Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a highly unusual public apology to a colleague Wednesday, saying her criticism of Justice Brett Kavanaugh for his writing in an earlier immigration case was unfair.
“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.”
Sotomayor’s statement followed remarks she made last week in Kansas in which she criticized Kavanaugh for his concurring opinion in a high-profile emergency immigration case dealing with ICE patrols — an exceedingly rare and personal comment directed at one justice by another.
Justices, particularly those who wind up dissenting, often snip at how their colleagues on the other side of an opinion frame an issue. But both conservative and liberal justices – including Sotomayor – also regularly discuss the comity on the court and how the nine justices get along personally even as they vehemently disagree in many high-profile cases.
That is what made the tone of Sotomayor’s remarks surprising.
“I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops,” Sotomayor said, according to a Bloomberg report. “This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.”
CNN had reached out to Sotomayor and Kavanaugh for comment after the event. Kavanaugh did not immediately respond to a follow-up request for comment about Sotomayor’s apology on Wednesday.
Sotomayor, the court’s senior liberal, was speaking last week about an opinion in early September in which the court backed President Donald Trump’s push to allow immigration enforcement officials to continue what critics describe as “roving patrols” in Southern California that lower courts said likely violated the Fourth Amendment.
The court’s majority did not offer an explanation for its decision in that case, which came over a sharp dissent from the three liberal justices.
But Kavanaugh, a member of the conservative wing who sided with Trump, wrote in a concurrence to explain his thinking. He said the factors the agents were considering “taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States.” Those factors could include a person’s apparent ethnicity, language or their presence at a particular location, such as a farm or a bus stop.
“To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors,” Kavanaugh wrote.
“Importantly,” Kavanaugh added, “reasonable suspicion means only that immigration officers may briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status.”
Liberal groups have zeroed in on Kavanaugh’s concurrence and have dubbed the immigration encounters at issue in the case as “Kavanaugh stops.” Immigrant advocacy groups have said the stops are often far lengthier and more intrusive than the justice made them seem in his opinion.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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