Justice Sonia Sotomayor - Liberal against ICE

Sotomayor targets Kavanaugh's background in public broadside over ICE raid ruling

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor used a public appearance at a University of Kansas School of Law event on Tuesday to single out colleague Brett Kavanaugh, claiming his upbringing as the son of professionals left him unable to understand the real-world consequences of immigration enforcement stops.

The remarks, personal, pointed, and delivered outside the courtroom, centered on Kavanaugh's concurring opinion last September in a case that allowed the Trump administration to continue ICE raids in the Los Angeles area, as the New York Post reported.

Sotomayor did not name Kavanaugh directly in her public remarks. But she left little doubt about her target.

Sotomayor told the Kansas audience that a colleague had characterized immigration stops as merely temporary. She then pivoted to a personal critique of Kavanaugh's family background, arguing it disqualified him from understanding the stakes for hourly workers detained by ICE agents.

"This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn't really know any person who works by the hour."

The episode raises a question that has nothing to do with immigration law: When a sitting justice uses a public stage to attack a colleague's personal background as the basis for his legal reasoning, what does that say about the state of the Court?

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