What happens when CBP confiscates your phone at the airport?

Even if you haven’t done anything wrong, it is It’s never a good idea to hand your phone over to the cops. But international travelers at U.S. airports often have no choice — even if they are American citizens.

When Minnesota labor organizer Janet Zahia Corselius returned home from a three-week trip to Europe in late April, she was detained and interrogated by customs agents in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Before they let her go, agents searched her luggage twice, confiscated political literature she had bought abroad, and confiscated her phone – which has not yet been returned, according to the British Daily Mail. complaint Filed in federal court in Minnesota.

Is it legal for CBP to take your phone? And keep it? The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which sued the government on behalf of Corcelius, doesn’t think so. The civil rights group claims it was targeted because of its opposition to ICE raids in Minneapolis. Corcellius’ lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security alleges that the seizure of her phone violates the Fourth Amendment, as well as CBP regulations regarding searches and seizures.

But the problem goes beyond phone searches. CAIR alleges that CBP conducts “systematic” inspections of activists’ devices, using counterterrorism language and tools to target critics and left-wing activists, in keeping with President Donald Trump’s efforts to go after what he calls “violent left-wing extremists, including anarchists and anti-fascists.”

According to the complaint, Corcellius called her attorney after she was pulled aside for questioning. She turned her phone over to the CBP director on duty so they could speak with her attorney. She was then told that her phone had been confiscated. Her other property was searched by CBP agents and agents of Homeland Security Investigations, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that focuses on international crime, drug trafficking and national security threats.

CBP can conduct two types of searches of people’s phones and other devices at the border: basic searches, where they can only look at what’s on the phone when it’s in airplane mode, and advanced forensic searches, where they connect the phone to an external device that allows them to walk through its contents and possibly copy them. US citizens cannot be prevented from returning to the United States Even if they refuse to search by phonebut their phones may be confiscated — and if customers can unlock them, either manually, using their own biometrics, or using tools made by companies like Israel-based Cellebrite, which It can unlock and extract data from phonesIts contents can also be searched. CBP did not respond EdgeComment requested in time for publication.

Since Trump returned to office, immigrants, tourists and other non-citizens have been deported from or denied entry to the United States — and, in one case, detained and allegedly “violently interrogated” by customs agents — After CBP searched their phones. Activists, including members of the convoy that delivered humanitarian aid to Cuba in response to the ongoing US blockade of the island nation, Their phones were confiscated at the border.

CBP phone searches remain relatively rare, but are on the rise. The agency conducted 55,318 inspections of phones and other electronic devices during fiscal year 2025, up from 41,767 in 2023. An increase of 32 percent.

But CAIR’s complaint notes that border agents can’t seize a person’s property at a port of entry unless they have “reasonable cause to believe that any law or regulation enforced by Customs, Border Protection, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been violated.” But there is one exception to this rule: “national security concerns.”

Following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last September, Trump issued an executive order Classification of “Antifa” as a terrorist organizationAlthough it is not an actual organization. Trump also issued a presidential memorandum calling for “a new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terrorist plots.” Presidential advisor Stephen Miller described this as a “whole-of-government approach to dismantling left-wing terrorism.” By linking Kirk’s killer to so-called “Antifa terrorists” — and discrediting any and all opponents as named terrorists — the administration gave itself cover to harass and intimidate anyone who might criticize the government.

The following January, the administration described Widespread resistance to brutal ICE raids in the Twin Cities As a coordinated conspiracy it was announced that the FBI was Investigation into Signal talks Where Minnesotans track and organize against ICE. Miller described Alex Peretti, one of two people killed by DHS agents in Minneapolis, as a “domestic terrorist” and “potential killer.”

Corselius was among Minnesotans who opposed ICE’s presence in the Twin Cities. In addition to her organizing, she shared news on social media about a Minneapolis City Council decision encouraging European institutions to divest from companies that contract with the Department of Homeland Security, according to the complaint.

“These rules that attempt to bring terrorism into the domestic policy discussion are exactly what we have feared would happen for a long time,” said John Fossum, a CAIR staff attorney who represents Corcelius. Edge. “Using these types of terrorist designations domestically allows the administration to communicate with the national security apparatus that allows it to conduct searches, conduct seizures, and target people in ways that they are certainly not permitted to do under domestic law.”

Corsellius is asking the federal court to order CBP to stop any advanced searches of her phone, delete any information collected from it during its search, and return her phone and other property. It is also asking the court to bar DHS from conducting non-routine searches of its property in the future, and to require the department to change its policy on non-routine telephone searches.

Even if the court were to act in Corcelius’ favor, it would not necessarily prevent CBP from targeting activists in the future. In 2024, a federal judge in New York ruled that CBP cannot search travelers’ phones without a warrant, but that ruling only applies to the Eastern District of New York, which includes John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens. But in 2021, The US Court of Appeals ruled That CBP agents He can Searching passengers’ devices without a warrant. The result is a patchwork of regulations across the country. In some jurisdictions, CBP can conduct warrantless background searches, but not criminal searches. In other cases, CBP can do whatever it wants. Likewise, any ruling in the Corcelius case may end up applying only in Minnesota.

As of this writing, she has not yet recovered her phone.