What travelers should know about U.S. border searches of phones and laptops

U.S. Customs and Border Protection conducted 55,318 searches of electronic devices at ports of entry in fiscal year 2025, the agency said, and agents have broad authority to examine phones, laptops and other devices under an exception to the Fourth Amendment. When U.S. border agents turned away a French scientist in March after searching his phone, French authorities blamed messages about President Trump’s policies; U.S.

officials denied politics played a role. C.B.P. said the searches are “conducted to detect digital contraband, terrorism-related content and information relevant to visitor admissibility, all of which play a critical role in national security,” a spokeswoman said. The 55,318 searches represented about 0.01 percent of nearly 420 million travelers who entered or exited the country by air, land and sea in fiscal 2025.

Noncitizens owned a majority of devices searched in the last three years, though the share belonging to U.S. citizens rose to about 25 percent from 21 percent. Agents can demand access to travelers’ electronics at ports of entry. U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents must still be allowed to enter if they refuse to unlock a device, but C.B.P.

can seize a device and hold it for five days or longer at a supervisor’s discretion. Officers conduct basic, manual searches and, in rarer cases, forensic searches that copy a device’s contents for further analysis and may recover deleted files.

Key Topics

Tech, Cbp, Electronic Devices, Forensic Search, Fourth Amendment, U.s. Citizens