Sotomayor apologizes for criticizing Kavanaugh over ICE arrests

Politics Sotomayor apologizes for criticizing Kavanaugh over ICE arrests, in rare public Supreme Court clash By Joe Walsh Joe Walsh Senior Editor, Politics Joe Walsh is a senior editor for digital politics at CBS News. Joe previously covered breaking news for Forbes and local news in Boston. Read Full Bio Joe Walsh April 15, 2026 / 8:34 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor apologized Wednesday for publicly criticizing Justice Brett Kavanaugh over a ruling on immigration stops — and seeming to imply that her conservative colleague's views were shaped by an out-of-touch upbringing."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 issued by the Supreme Court on Wednesday. "I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague."Sotomayor did not mention Kavanaugh by name. But during last week's event in Kansas, she reportedly offered rare — and personal — criticism of a Supreme Court order in which Kavanaugh was the only member of the majority to lay out his rationale in writing.The September 2025 order cleared the way for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to resume broad sweeps in Los Angeles, halting a lower court ruling that restricted ICE's practices. The lower court found the agency had unlawfully detained people, and said ICE could not rely solely on factors like race, occupation or use of Spanish in deciding whether it had reasonable suspicion that somebody is in the United States illegally.Kavanaugh penned a concurrence that questioned the lower court ruling, writing that ethnicity cannot be the sole reason why somebody is stopped but could be a relevant factor. He also wrote at one point that the immigration stops in question were typically a "brief encounter," with detainees free to go once they demonstrate they are in the count...