In recent weeks, airport Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have drawn public outcry for denying travelers US entry based on searches of their phones. A doctor on an H-1B visa was deported to Lebanon after CBP found “sympathetic photos and videos” of Hezbollah leaders. A French scientist was turned away after a device search unearthed messages criticizing the Trump administration’s cuts to research programs, which officers said “conveyed hatred of Trump” and “could be qualified as terrorism.” As the administration ratchets up pressure to turn away even legal immigrants, its justifications are becoming thinner and thinner — but travelers can still benefit from knowing what are supposed to be their legal rights.

Your ability to decline a search depends on your immigration status — and, in some cases, on where and how you’re entering the country. Courts across the country have issued different rulings on device searches at ports of entry. But no matter your situation, there are precautions you can take to safeguard your digital privacy.

CBP device searches have historically been relatively rare. During the 2024 fiscal year, less than 0.01 percent of arriving international travelers had their phones, computers, or other electronic devices searched by CBP, according to the agency. That year, CBP officers conducted 47,047 device searches. But even before this recent wave of incidents, inspections were on the rise: eight years earlier, during the 2016 fiscal year, CBP searched only 19,051 devices.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that warrantless searches of people’s cell phones violated the Fourth Amendment. But there’s one exception to that rule: searches that happen at the border. The courts have held that border searches “are reasonable simply because they occur at the border,” meaning in most cases, CBP and Border Patrol don’t need a warrant to look through travelers’ belongings — including their phones. That exception applies far beyond the US’s literal borders, since airports are considered border zones, too.

“Traditionally, the border search exception to the Fourth Amendment allowed customs officers to search things like luggage. The idea was whatever you’re taking with you is pertinent to your travel,” Saira Hussain, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The Verge. The point was to look for people or things that were inadmissible into the country.

These days, most travelers are carrying a lot more in their pockets — not only information stored on a phone’s hardware, but anything that’s accessible on it with a data connection. “When you look at devices, the data that you carry with you isn’t just pertinent to your travel. This data can precede your travel by over a decade because of how much information is stored on the cloud,” Hussain said. “It can show every facet of your life. It can show your financial history, your medical history, your communications with your doctor and your attorney. It can reveal so much information that is not analogous at all to the notion of a customs officer looking through your luggage.” Privacy advocates have warned of this issue for years, but in an environment where officers are seeking any pretext to turn someone away, it’s an even bigger problem.

If you’re a US citizen, “