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By Dan Gooding and Gabe Whisnant
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Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Wednesday that she had apologized to her colleague Brett Kavanaugh, adding that she had made inappropriate comments about him in public.
In a statement shared with CNN, Sotomayor addressed a comment she had made during an appearance last week at the University of Kansas School of Law, where she criticized the conservative justice for his concurring opinion on a case related to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last year.
“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 the statement, per CNN. “I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague.”
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Kavanaugh had written a concurring opinion in September, backing President Donald Trump's push to allow immigration enforcement's roving patrols in Southern California, which a lower court had said likely violated the Fourth Amendment. He said that agents were likely considering factors which "taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States."
While Sotomayor did not directly name Kavanaugh last week, she criticized her colleague for “for failing to grasp the real-world effects of an unsigned order last year that allowed immigration enforcement sweeps in Los Angeles to resume,” per Bloomberg Law.
Newsweek reached out to the Supreme Court via its contact form Wednesday afternoon.
Sotomayor’s Apology Comes Amid Broader Supreme Court Tensions
Sotomayor’s apology came amid a wider public debate over the Supreme Court’s growing reliance on emergency orders—a practice that has drawn sharp criticism from the court’s liberal wing. The court has increasingly used such orders to allow presidents to move forward with major policy changes while litigation continues, often with little explanation.
The approach has become a flashpoint as the justices make more public appearances during gaps in the court’s argument calendar, offering rare glimpses into internal disagreements that are usually confined to written opinions.
Liberal Justices Raise Alarms Over Emergency Orders
Earlier this week, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson delivered an unusually forceful public critique of the court’s emergency rulings, particularly those that have allowed Trump’s administration to pursue aggressive immigration enforcement and other contested policies.
Speaking at Yale Law School, Jackson argued that emergency orders—while technically temporary—frequently have lasting consequences after lower courts have found policies likely unlawful.
Jackson described the emergency orders as weakly reasoned, calling them “scratch‑paper musings” that nonetheless must be followed by lower courts. She said the rulings often lack sufficient explanation and effectively short‑circuit the traditional judicial process.
She also disputed the High Court’s practice of treating delays to presidential policies as a primary form of harm, arguing that executive action should not be shielded when a policy is likely illegal.
Jackson and Sotomayor have both emphasized that emergency rulings often fail to account for how policies affect real people. Jackson said such orders can appear “oblivious and thus ring hollow,” while Sotomayor has repeatedly warned that immigration enforcement decisions can have serious consequences for hourly workers and immigrant communities.
Those concerns were central to Sotomayor’s remarks last week, which she later said went too far in characterizing a colleague’s perspective.
Rare Public Friction at the Supreme Court
Public criticism among Supreme Court justices is uncommon, particularly when it involves comments about a colleague’s background or lived experience. Sotomayor’s decision to issue a formal apology through official court channels underscored the importance the justices place on maintaining institutional norms.
The episode illustrates how ideological divides are increasingly spilling into public view at a time when individual justices are engaging more directly with audiences outside the courtroom, even as the court seeks to project unity.
Updates: 4/15/26, 6:24 p.m. ET: This article was updated with new information and remarks.
Reporting by the Associated Press contributed to this article.
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