U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh answers questions during judicial conference, Friday, May 10, 2024, in Austin, TexasMother Jones illustration; Getty; Eric Gay/AP

The staff of Mother Jones is, once again, rounding up the heroes and monsters of the past year. This is a non-exhaustive and totally subjective list, giving our reporters a chance to write about something that brought joy, discontent, or curiosity. Happy holidays.

The return of President Donald Trump has ushered in a new era of violent attacks by immigration officials, upon citizens and noncitizens alike. In city after city, we’ve seen that—whether waiting for the bus, sleeping peacefully in your bed, or working at the car wash that you own—you can be seized, zip-tied, and detained because of the color of your skin.

Boldly, Kavanaugh let neither the law nor the truth stop him from writing many stupid sentences defending the indefensible.

This isn’t the law, nor is it constitutional. And, until September, this indiscriminate racial profiling lacked a pithy descriptor. But, thanks to the Supreme Court, which legitimized this new regime, we have a name for this government-sponsored terror: Kavanaugh Stops.

When the administration’s practice of racial profiling as part of its immigration enforcement operation in and around Los Angeles reached the Supreme Court this summer in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, Justice Brett Kavanaugh voted alongside his GOP-appointed colleagues to greenlight this racist policy. His colleagues hid their reasoning in uncanny silence. But Kavanaugh decided to pen an opinion, called a concurrence, defending his decision. He then released his defense to the public (even though no other justice would sign onto it).

The opinion argued that the administration’s decision to use race as one proxy for immigration status likely didn’t run afoul of the Fourth Amendment or the court’s precedents. But, to make these arguments, his concurrence contradicted both daily news reports and the evidence in the very case he was ruling on. Boldly, Kavanaugh let neither the law nor the truth stop him from........

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