Kavanaugh stop
The term “Kavanaugh stop” refers to the practice whereby federal immigration officers may stop someone based on perceived factors such as their presence at specific locations, occupation, spoken language, and ethnicity, to inquire about their immigration status.
The term is derived from online discourse about Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurrence in the emergency docket case Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo (2025) where he stated that under 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(1) federal immigration officers “‘may briefly detain’ an individual ‘for questioning’ if they have ‘a reasonable suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that the person being questioned ... is an alien illegally in the United States.’” Justice Kavanaugh elaborated that “under this Court's precedents, not to mention common sense, [factors such as (i) presence at particular locations such as bus stops, car washes, day laborer pickup sites, agricultural sites, and the like; (ii) the type of work one does; (iii) speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent; and (iv) apparent race or ethnicity] 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. Only if the person is illegally in the United States may the stop lead to further immigration proceedings.” Justice Kavanaugh included the caveat that federal immigration officials may not use ethnicity alone, stating that “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.”
Critics of the practice argue that Justice Kavanaugh’s characterization of the stops as “typically brief” is overbroad and presented without evidence; others regard the practice to be a violation of constitutional rights, such as the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has condemned the inconsistency stemming from the practice in her dissenting opinion in Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections (2026), noting that in Noem, “...Latino plaintiffs who were ‘stopped for immigration questioning allegedly without reasonable suspicion of unlawful presence’ lacked standing to seek an injunction” but the same Court in Bost found that there was standing for the plaintiffs despite plaintiffs in both cases citing status-based potential harm as rationale for seeking relief.
[Last reviewed in May of 2026 by the Wex Definitions Team]
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