Supreme Court justices weigh in on LA immigration raids

Sonia Sotomayor led the dissent on behalf of herself and the court's other two liberal Justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, while Brett Kavanaugh wrote a solo opinion in favor of the majority.

By Misty Severi

Published: September 8, 2025 7:51pm

Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Sonia Sotomayor on Monday wrote separate opinions on the court's ruling on the Trump administration's immigration raids in Los Angeles earlier this year.

The High Court is allowing immigration raids to continue based, in part, on race and language, placing a hold on a lower court's ruling that blocked the raids, Reuters reported.

Sotomayor led the dissent on behalf of herself and the court's other two liberal Justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The judges argued the ruling was “unconscionably irreconcilable with our Nation’s constitutional guarantees."

“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,” Sotomayor wrote. “Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent."

Kavanaugh indicated in his opinion, which sided with the 6-3 majority, that the government would likely win the case and that the plaintiffs likely had no legal basis to sue. He also said ethnicity alone is not a basis for stopping someone, but other circumstances could justify an immigration sweep.

Those circumstances include the “extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area,” the kinds of jobs that illegal migrants work in the area, and the fact that illegal migrants often "gather in certain locations to seek daily work."

These circumstances "when taken together constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States," he wrote.

Bill Essayli, U.S. Attorney for California, responded to Sotomayor's dissent, saying, "We are allowed to use those facts [language and certain work locations] to form reasonable suspicion. And we can detain people, very briefly, to figure out if they're here illegally. And if they're here legally, they'll be quickly released. And the Supreme Court acknowledged that," Essayli said Monday on Fox News.

The legal case is expected to continue up the legal chain now, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials may continue its operations uninhibited in the meantime.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.