What happens when CBP confiscates your phone at the airport

Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, it’s never a good idea to hand your phone to the cops. But international travelers at American airports often have no choice — even if they’re US citizens.

When Minnesota labor organizer Janette Zahia Corcelius returned home from a three-week trip to Europe in late April, she was detained and questioned by customs agents at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Before they let her go, the agents searched her luggage twice, confiscated political literature she had purchased abroad, and seized her phone — which has yet to be returned, according to a complaint filed in federal court in Minnesota.

Is it constitutional for Customs and Border Protection to take your phone? And to keep it? The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which sued the government on Corcelius’ behalf, doesn’t think so. The civil rights group claims she’s being targeted for her opposition to the ICE raids in Minneapolis. The suit Corcelius filed against the Department of Homeland Security alleges that the confiscation of her phone violates the Fourth Amendment, as well as CBP’s own regulations regarding searches and seizures.

But the problem goes beyond one phone search. CAIR argues that CBP is conducting “systematic” searches of activists’ devices, using the language and tools of counterterrorism to target left-wing critics and activists, in keeping with President Donald Trump’s efforts to go after those he calls “Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists.”

According to the complaint, Corcelius called her attorney after being pulled aside for questioning. She handed her phone to CBP’s manager on duty so they could talk to her attorney. Then she was told her phone was being confiscated. Her other property was searched by both CBP agents and agents with 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 inspections, in which they can only look at what’s on the phone while it’s in airplane mode, and advanced forensic searches, in which they hook up the phone to an external device that allows them to go through and potentially copy its contents. American citizens can’t be kept from reentering the United States even if they decline a phone search, but their phone may be seized — and if agents manage to unlock it, either manually, with their biometrics, or with tools made by companies like the Israel-based Cellebrite, which can unlock and extract data from phones, its contents can also be searched. CBP did not respond to The Verge’s request for comment in time for publication.

Since Trump’s return to office, immigrants, tourists, and other noncitizens have been deported from or denied entry to the US — and in one instance, detained and allegedly “violently interrogated” by customs agents — after having their phones searched by CBP. Activists, including members of a convoy that delivered humanitarian aid to Cuba in response to the US’s ongoing blockade of the island nation, have had their phones seized at the border.

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

But the CAIR complaint notes that border agents can only confiscate a person’s property at a port of entry if they have “reasonable cause to believe that any law or regulation enforced by Customs or Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been violated.” There is one exception to that rule, however: “national security concern.”

In the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination last September, Trump issued an executive order designating “Antifa” as a terrorist organization, even though 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 terroristic conspiracies.” Presidential adviser Stephen Miller described this as an “all-of-government approach to dismantle left-wing terrorism.” By linking Kirk’s killer to so-called “antifa terrorists” — and smearing any and all of its opponents as said terrorists — the administration has given itself cover to harass and intimidate anyone who might be critical of the government.

The following January, the administration described the widespread resistance to ICE’s brutal raids in the Twin Cities as a coordinated plot and announced that the FBI was investigating Signal chats in which Minnesotans track and organize against ICE. Miller called Alex Pretti, one of the two people DHS agents killed in Minneapolis, as a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin.”

Corcelius was among the 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 resolution encouraging European institutions to divest from corporations that contract with DHS, according to the complaint.

“These rules that attempt to bring terrorism into the domestic policy discussion are exactly what we have been afraid of happening for a long time,” John Fossum, a staff attorney at CAIR representing Corcelius, told The Verge. “The use of these types of terrorist designations domestically allows the administration to plug into this national security apparatus that allows them to conduct searches, to conduct seizures, to target people in ways they otherwise certainly are not allowed to do under domestic law.”

Corcelius is asking a federal court to order CBP to stop any advanced searches of her phone, delete any information gathered from it in their search, and return her phone and other belongings. She’s also asking the court to prohibit DHS from conducting non-routine searches of her property in the future, and to require the department to change its policy around non-routine phone searches.

Even if the court acts in Corcelius’ favor, it won’t necessarily stop CBP from targeting activists in the future. In 2024, a federal judge in New York ruled that CBP can’t search travelers’ phones without a warrant — but that ruling only applies to New York’s Eastern District, which includes John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens. But in 2021, a US appeals court ruled that CBP agents can search travelers’ devices without a warrant. The result is a patchwork of regulations across the country. In some jurisdictions, CBP can conduct warrantless basic inspections, but not forensic ones. In others, CBP can do whatever it wants. Similarly, any ruling in Corcelius’ case may end up only applying in Minnesota.

As of this writing, she has yet to get her phone back.