Under regulations adopted by the Department of Homeland Security, border agents are permitted to search through the documents, photographs, emails, and other files stored on international travelers’ electronic devices without any reason to suspect that those travelers are engaged in wrongdoing. Agents may even confiscate the devices and hold them for months without a warrant or probable cause. In this case, immigration attorney and U.S. citizen George Anibowei had his phone searched at the airport without a warrant five times over several years. In one incident, agents copied the contents of his phone, which included confidential client communications. Anibowei challenged the policy allowing these searches in the Fifth Circuit, which upheld the regulations. Anibowei asked the Supreme Court to review his case, and in September 2026, CAC filed an amicus brief in support of his petition.

Our brief urges the Supreme Court to reject the government’s attempt to justify these highly intrusive searches through an expansion of the “border search doctrine.” That doctrine, a traditional exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, allows suspicionless searches of people and property entering the country in order to locate contraband and enforce customs and immigration laws. As we explain in our brief, however, this exception cannot justify giving government agents free rein to inspect the vast range of files stored on modern electronic devices—which include private and familial writings and correspondence, personal photographs, all manner of records, and other private information. Such files are digital “papers,” which the text of the Fourth Amendment explicitly protects. And as we explain, oppressive searches of personal papers were at the core of the historical struggle that inspired the Framers to adopt the Fourth Amendment’s safeguards. Consistent with those historical origins, personal papers have traditionally received heightened protection under the Fourth Amendment, and the Supreme Court has acknowledged the unique intrusions on privacy that occur when the contents of one’s papers are exposed to the government.

Searching the information stored on modern electronic devices cannot be equated with searching through physical objects carried in a traveler’s luggage. Unlike simple searches for contraband—for example, ensuring an envelope does not contain drugs—searches of a person’s digital library require an intrusive examination into the contents of their personal papers. Therefore, to keep the border search doctrine tethered to its rationale, searches of electronic devices must be limited to detecting contraband. Ultimately, unfettered power to browse through a person’s entire digital library cannot be squared with the Fourth Amendment simply because the search occurs at the border.