North Carolina doesn’t have a land border with Mexico or Canada, so most people don’t think of us as a border state. But we are. We have a maritime border and several international airports that courts have deemed the functional equivalent of a border. Fourth Amendment protections are greatly reduced at the border, and United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the federal agency responsible for securing the border, reports that in 2023 it conducted border searches of electronic devices belonging to 41,467 travelers. This post considers when law enforcement officers may search an international traveler’s electronic devices. First principles. The Fourth Amendment requires that searches be reasonable. The Supreme Court has stated that “[w]arrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable,” subject to “a few limited exceptions.” United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705 (1984). The border search doctrine. One of those exceptions is the border search doctrine, which allows routine searches at the border without a warrant or any level of individualized suspicion. The Supreme Court has stated that the government’s interest in “preventing the entry of unwanted persons and effects” renders most border searches reasonable “simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border.” United States v. Flores-Montano, 541 U.S. 149 (2004) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). So Customs and Border Protection officers are free to look through your suitcases when you return from an overseas trip just in case you’re bringing back prohibited cultural antiquities or farm-fresh fruits – no probable cause or reasonable suspicion required. [...]
Faculty Coordinators
