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Can Border Agents Search Your Phone Without Any Suspicion?

The Second Circuit ruled on September 17 in United States v. Alisigwe that CBP officers can manually look through a traveler's phone at the border with no warrant and no suspicion. The court left open whether copying or forensically analyzing a phone needs more.

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On September 17, 2026, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided United States v. Alisigwe and changed what border phone search rights look like for anyone flying into New York, Connecticut or Vermont. The court held that Customs and Border Protection officers can manually search a traveler's cellphone at the border with no warrant, no probable cause and no individualized suspicion at all. The ruling covers manual searches only: an officer holding the phone and scrolling through it. The panel expressly declined to decide whether a forensic search, meaning copying, extracting or analyzing the phone's data off site, requires reasonable suspicion. Some early descriptions said the court let agents "search and copy" phones. That overstates what the court decided.

Below, we answer the questions travelers and people facing charges are asking, using the court's reasoning, CBP's own published policy and reporting on the case.

Can border agents search my phone with no reason at all?

Yes, for a manual search, if you are entering the country in the Second Circuit (NY, CT, VT). Most other federal circuits already treated manual phone searches the same way.

The majority opinion, written by Judge Steven Menashi and joined by District Judge Hector Gonzalez sitting by designation, relied on the Supreme Court's 1977 decision in United States v. Ramsey. That case held that border searches without a warrant or probable cause have been treated as "reasonable" for as long as the Fourth Amendment has existed, according to Reason's coverage of the ruling. This is the "border search exception": the government's interest in controlling what crosses the border allows searches that would be unconstitutional inside the country.

Courts divide border searches into "routine" searches, which need no suspicion, and "nonroutine" ones, which need more. The UNC School of Government's overview traces that line through Supreme Court cases like Flores-Montano and Montoya de Hernandez. The 1st Circuit (Alasaad v. Mayorkas), along with the 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th Circuits, already treated manual phone searches as routine. Alisigwe puts the Second Circuit in the same camp.

Before this ruling, some federal trial courts in the Second Circuit had gone the other way. Reason reports that US v. Smith (SDNY 2023) and US v. Sultanov (EDNY 2024) required warrants or questioned suspicionless searches. Alisigwe now controls in all three states.

A manual search is an officer looking through the phone by hand. A forensic search uses outside equipment to copy or analyze the phone's contents. Under CBP policy the second one requires reasonable suspicion, and the Second Circuit did not decide whether the Constitution requires that too.

A smartphone and a coiled data-extraction cable rest on a stainless steel tray under fluorescent light beside a blank paper tag.

CBP's Directive 3340-049B uses two categories:

  • Basic search: a manual review of the device with no external equipment. No suspicion is required.

  • Advanced search: external equipment is connected to the device to review, copy or analyze its contents. This requires reasonable suspicion of a violation of law or a national security concern, plus approval from a manager at Grade 14 or higher.

The Alisigwe court said that because only a manual review was involved, it did not need to decide whether "sophisticated forensic search methods," such as "the off-site forensic analysis of the phone's data," are nonroutine searches that require reasonable suspicion, as reported by IBTimes UK and Web And IT News. That question remains open in NY, CT and VT.

Can CBP read my cloud storage, email or social media?

Under CBP's published policy, no. Border searches cover only data stored on the device itself, not data held remotely or in the cloud.

CBP says officers must disable the device's network connectivity, or ask the traveler to do it, before searching. The agency also says passcodes collected to open a device are deleted once they are no longer needed. That is a policy commitment, not a holding from Alisigwe, but it matters if you later need to challenge what an officer looked at.

Do I have to unlock my phone at the border?

CBP policy says travelers must present devices "in a condition that allows for the examination of the device and its contents." What happens if you refuse depends on your status.

  • US citizens: you will not be denied entry, but CBP may detain the device.

  • Foreign nationals (visa holders and visitors): the device may be detained or excluded, and refusing can affect whether you are admitted.

  • Green card holders: this is a gray area. Lawful permanent residents are not in the same position as either group, and anyone with a green card should talk to an immigration or criminal defense lawyer before international travel if this is a concern.

Whether the government can compel you to give up a passcode under the Fifth Amendment is a separate question that courts have not settled, and this ruling did not address it. Refusing to unlock does not stop CBP from keeping the device.

Why doesn't Riley v. California protect me here?

Because Riley is about arrests, not borders. In Riley v. California (2014), the Supreme Court required police to get a warrant before searching a phone seized during an arrest. The Alisigwe panel distinguished Riley on the ground that the border exception rests on a different rationale, the government's authority over what enters the country, according to IBTimes UK.

Judge Eunice Lee, who concurred in the result, saw it differently. She wrote that a cellphone search "is much closer on the spectrum to a strip search than it is to the search of luggage because of the amount of information it reveals," and she would have required at least reasonable suspicion, Reason reports.

How does something found at the border end up in a criminal case?

The Alisigwe case shows the path from a phone search at the airport to a federal conviction.

An empty wood-paneled courtroom viewed from a low angle down the center aisle toward the empty jury box.

  • The first stop. Homeland Security Investigations and CBP agents stopped Mr. Alisigwe, a lawful permanent resident, at JFK Airport when he returned from Nigeria. Most reports, including Reason's, place this in 2019. (The Knight First Amendment Institute's statement gives a different date, so the opinion itself is the place to confirm the timeline.) An officer had him unlock his phone, scrolled through it, and used his own phone to photograph images in the gallery that contained other people's personal information. Nothing was forensically extracted.

  • The second search. More than two years later, after another international trip, officers manually reviewed the phone again and photographed a WhatsApp message about identity theft, per IBTimes UK.

  • Charges and suppression. Mr. Alisigwe moved to suppress the phone evidence. The district court denied the motion because it found officers had reasonable suspicion.

  • Trial and sentence. In 2024 a jury convicted him of bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was sentenced to five years, which IBTimes UK reports included enhancements for $3.5 million in intended loss and for obstruction.

  • Appeal. Mr. Alisigwe did not challenge the reasonable suspicion finding on appeal. The Second Circuit affirmed on a broader ground: no suspicion was required in the first place. Judge Lee said the court did not need to reach that constitutional question, since the lower court's finding was enough to decide the case.

The procedural takeaway: the appeals court used a case it could have decided narrowly to set a broad rule for the whole circuit.

If I'm charged using border phone evidence, what can my lawyer do?

A manual search is now hard to challenge in the Second Circuit, but that does not end the analysis. Questions a defense lawyer may examine include:

  • Was it really manual? If officers connected equipment, copied data or analyzed it off site, the search may fall into the category the court left open, and CBP's own rules required reasonable suspicion and supervisor approval.

  • Did CBP follow its directive? Whether connectivity was disabled, whether cloud or remote data was accessed, and whether an advanced search had the required approval.

  • What was preserved? In Alisigwe, the evidence was photographs of the screen taken with an officer's phone. How evidence was captured and documented can matter.

  • Where is the case? Outside the Second Circuit, the law on forensic searches varies. The 4th Circuit (Kolsuz) and 9th Circuit (Cano) require reasonable suspicion for forensic searches, and the 9th limits them to looking for digital contraband. The 11th Circuit (Touset) requires no suspicion even for forensic searches, according to the UNC overview.

  • Preserving the issue. The Supreme Court has not decided how the border exception applies to phones. With the circuits split on forensic searches, raising the issue early keeps it available if the law changes.

How often does CBP search phones?

According to CBP, in fiscal year 2025 the agency conducted 55,318 device searches. Of those, 50,922 were basic (about 92%) and 4,396 were advanced (about 8%). CBP says that is under 0.01% of all travelers and 0.47% of people sent to secondary inspection.

Critics say the numbers do not make the rule less significant. Scott Wilkens of the Knight First Amendment Institute said the decision "leaves Americans' most sensitive information open to search at the border without any suspicion at all."

What to do now

If you are traveling internationally:

  • Assume anything stored on your phone can be viewed during a manual search when you re-enter through NY, CT or VT, and in most other circuits.

  • Know that CBP policy limits searches to data on the device and requires network connectivity to be turned off. If an officer appears to be browsing cloud accounts, note it.

  • If you are a green card holder or visa holder, get legal advice before travel about the consequences of refusing to unlock a device.

  • If your device is detained or searched, write down the date, the officers' names if given, whether any equipment was attached, and whether you received a receipt.

If you are already charged with evidence from a border phone search:

  • Get your lawyer every record of the search: whether it was logged as basic or advanced, who approved it, and how the evidence was captured.

  • Ask whether your case is in a circuit that requires reasonable suspicion for forensic searches, and whether the search in your case went beyond a manual review.

  • Raise any constitutional challenge in the trial court. Issues not raised early can be lost on appeal, and Alisigwe shows how an appeals court may decide the broader question anyway.

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Frequently asked questions

Can border agents search my phone without a warrant or suspicion?

For a manual search, yes. On September 17, 2026, the Second Circuit held in United States v. Alisigwe that CBP officers need neither a warrant nor reasonable suspicion to scroll through a traveler's phone at the border, and most other federal circuits agree.

Does the Alisigwe ruling let CBP copy my phone's data?

No. The court decided only the manual search question and expressly left open whether forensic searches, such as off-site analysis of a phone's data, require reasonable suspicion. CBP's own policy already requires reasonable suspicion or a national security concern plus manager approval for advanced searches.

Do I have to unlock my phone for CBP?

CBP policy says devices must be presented in a condition that allows examination. A US citizen who refuses will not be denied entry but the device may be detained, while a foreign national's device may be detained and refusal can affect admissibility.

Can CBP search my cloud accounts or email at the border?

Under CBP policy, border searches cover only data stored on the device, not remote or cloud data. Officers must disable network connectivity or have the traveler do so before searching.

Why doesn't Riley v. California require a warrant at the border?

Riley requires a warrant to search a phone seized during an arrest. The Second Circuit said the border search exception rests on a different rationale, the government's authority over what enters the country, so Riley does not control.

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