Justice Sonia Sotomayor is aiming for the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, warning that their latest ruling threatens basic constitutional protections by allowing what she describes as racial-profiling raids.
“That decision is yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” Sotomayor wrote in a fiery 20-page dissent released Monday. “We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job.”
The case stems from a July order by a Biden-appointed federal judge in Los Angeles, who limited immigration agents from stopping people without “reasonable suspicion.” The judge’s ruling came after repeated complaints that officers were targeting random Hispanic individuals during large-scale sweeps.
But in a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court struck down the order, siding with arguments that immigration enforcement should not be restricted. The ruling is being viewed as a victory for the Trump administration, which has pushed for tougher immigration measures and wider authority for federal agents.
Sotomayor, joined by fellow liberal justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said the court’s move was “unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation’s constitutional guarantees.” She accused both the government and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who filed a solo concurrence, of effectively sanctioning mass targeting of Latino communities. “Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor,” she wrote.
Her dissent zeroed in on Kavanaugh’s reasoning, which acknowledged that ethnicity alone cannot justify suspicion but argued it could be “a relevant factor” when combined with other details. “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 said in his opinion.
Sotomayor wasn’t buying it. She argued that what’s happening on the ground has nothing to do with brief questioning. “They are not conducting ‘brief stops for questioning,’ as the concurrence would like to believe. They are seizing people using firearms, physical violence, and warehouse detentions,” she wrote, painting a picture of aggressive tactics that go far beyond legal bounds.
Her dissent also blasted the conservative justices for issuing what she called an “entirely unexplained” order. By failing to clarify whether their decision was based on standing, the merits of the case, or the scope of relief, she said, the court leaves lower judges guessing and injects ideology into rulings that carry immediate, real-world consequences.
The sharp divide underscores the ongoing tension over immigration enforcement and how far federal agents can go when making stops. For Sotomayor, the ruling is more than a legal misstep—it’s a dangerous precedent that she says undermines the rights of millions of Americans.