Border Search of Electronic Devices Tear Sheet (2024)

FAQs

Can border agents search your electronic devices? ›

All travelers crossing the United States border are subject to CBP inspection. On rare occasions, CBP officers may search a traveler's mobile phone, computer, camera, or other electronic devices during the inspection process.

All persons, baggage, and merchandise arriving in, or departing from, the United States are subject to inspection by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). This search authority includes all electronic devices crossing our nation's borders.

If an agent detains you, you can ask for their basis for reasonable suspicion, and they should tell you. An immigration officer also cannot search you or your belongings without either “probable cause” or your consent. If an agent asks you if they can search your belongings, you have the right to say no.

Customs and Border Protection insists that it can search electronics without a warrant. A federal judge just said it can't. The Fourth Amendment still applies at the border, despite the feds' insistence that it doesn't.

Keep in mind that a forensic search of your device will unearth deleted items, metadata, and other files. Encrypt devices with strong and unique passwords and shut them down when crossing the border. A good resource on how to do so can be found here. Store sensitive data in a secure cloud-storage account.

What about the data on my phone, computer, or other electronic device? CBP agents may swipe through your phone or look through the documents on your com- puter. The government also claims the authority to copy the data on your electronic devices.

You may be asked where you were born, how you entered the U.S. or how long you've been here. You don't ever have to answer those questions. Your responses may be used to detain and deport you. Do not sign anything without talking to a lawyer.

Once an agent has your phone or device in hand, he or she can go through text messages, voicemails, social media apps, photos, and any other apps or content you have stored on your phone.

The Fourth Amendment and the Border Exception

A major exception to the general warrant requirement is the border exception, which recognizes the sovereign authority of Congress and the executive to conduct searches at the border, for persons and property, whether coming into or going out of the country.

Can Border Patrol make you unlock your phone? ›

You should assume that CBP will ask you to unlock or decrypt any device that you bring to the border and that CBP may assert authority to detain the device itself.

American border agents have the legal authority to conduct searches at the United States border that a police officer on the street wouldn't. Laws that allow agents to search bags without a judge's approval, for the purposes of immigration or security compliance, have been extended to digital devices.

Even though you always have the right to remain silent, if you don't answer questions to establish your citizenship, officials may detain you longer in order to verify your immigration status.

In U.S. v. Cano, the Ninth Circuit adopted a more limited view of the border exception, holding that warrantless searches of cell phones at the border were permissible only when the search was for digital contraband.

Agents may search any person, the inside of any vehicle, and all passenger belongings.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) primarily focuses on physical threats. Their job is to ensure nothing dangerous gets on a plane, so there should be no need to go through your phone. Even if they did have reason to want to access your device, they'd need a warrant.