Kavanaugh stop

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Kavanaugh stop is a new term for an arrest or detention by US immigration officials that use racial profiling to identify suspected undocumented immigrants. The term is named after US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh who wrote in a concurrence to the court’s decision in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo on 8 September 2025 that immigration officials may use race and ethnicity as a factor to “briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status.” In actual practice, such detentions are frequently of US citizens or documented immigrants, are often violent, and last for hours or even days.

The term is modeled after the longstanding legal jargon term Terry stop. The Supreme Court ruled in Terry v. Ohio (1968) that an officer can stop and frisk a person if they have a reasonable suspicion that person is involved in criminal activity.

In Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo the court overruled a lower court’s restraining order that prevented immigration officials from using racial profiling in making such arrests. The case was on the so-called “shadow docket,” and there is no written majority opinion giving the reason for the decision, but Kavanaugh wrote his own concurrence outlining his own reasons (I've elided the legal citations in the quotation for readability):

To stop an individual for brief questioning about immigration status, the Government must have reasonable suspicion that the individual is illegally present in the United States. Reasonable suspicion is a lesser requirement than probable cause and “considerably short” of the preponderance of the evidence standard. Whether an officer has reasonable suspicion depends on the totality of the circumstances. Here the circumstances include: that there is an extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area; that those individuals tend to gather in certain locations to seek daily work; that those individuals often work in certain kinds of jobs, such as day labor, landscaping, agriculture, and construction, that do not require paperwork and are therefore especially attractive to illegal immigrants; and that many of those illegally in the Los Angeles area come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English. 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.

Under this Court’s precedents, not to mention common sense, those circumstances taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States. Importantly, reasonable suspicion means only that immigration officers may briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status. If the person is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.

Kavanaugh’s concurrence displays a marked ignorance of how immigration officials are actually operating.

The term Kavanaugh stop appeared in social media posts by 27 September 2025. A Bluesky user on that date described an account of a Latino man with temporary protected status who was illegally detained overnight in Virginia with the following:

What we might refer to as a “Kavanaugh Stop”

And another poster replied to that with:

Oh, “Kavanaugh stop” has to be one part of the vernacular. It’s the new “Terry stop.”

And by 1 October 2025, the term had its own entry in Urbandictionary.com:

Kavanaugh Stop

When ICE agents (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) violently harass or detain US citizens on the basis of racial profiling, particularly if they have a Latino appearance.

Named after Justice Brett Kavanaugh due to his comments in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo that immigration stops are a brief, minor inconvenience for US citizens. His assertion was ridiculous even under the facts of the case in question, and were repeatedly proven wrong in the aftermath.

I got two broken ribs in a Kavanaugh Stop, even after I showed ICE my ID

Sources:

Kalhan, Anil (@akalhan.bsky.social), Bluesky, 27 September 2025.

Kavanaugh, Brett. Concurrence, 25A169 Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo (SCOTUS 09/08/2025), 5–6. Supremecourt.gov.

Urbandictionary.com, 1 October 2025, s.v. Kavanaugh Stop.

Watertigernyc (@watertigernyc.bsky.social). Bluesky, 27 September 2025.