PPSA Tells Supreme Court – A Border Crossing Should Not Open an American’s Digital Life to Search

George Anibowei is an immigration attorney in Texas whose many clients include people facing removal proceedings brought by the Department of Homeland Security. Like most lawyers, many of his confidential communications with clients occur over the phone.

Between 2016 and 2024, border agents searched Anibowei’s phone without a warrant at least five times as he returned to the United States from abroad. During the first search, agents copied all the data on his phone, including confidential client communications. The government retains a copy of that data to this day.

On another return from abroad, agents held Anibowei for three hours while reviewing his texts, WhatsApp messages, and emails. He eventually had to stop traveling with his work phone to avoid exposing his clients’ communications to the agency opposing those clients’ interests.

PPSA is now urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case and resolve a split among courts on the legality of warrantless searches of digital devices at the border. As our brief explains:

“The purpose of a border search is to ask what people, goods or cargo are entering the country. A general search of a traveler’s phone asks a different question: What has the traveler done and said?”

As a U.S. citizen, Anibowei has a right to enter the country. These phone searches served no apparent customs or entry purpose. After all, criminals do not smuggle exotic animals or drugs in a digital format. But these searches did expose Anibowei’s communications and records, including what the Supreme Court has called “a digital record of nearly every aspect” of his life.

A Circuit Split and a Ripe Question

The Fifth Circuit nevertheless upheld the searches because they occurred at the border. The courts of appeals have split 7-2 over whether agents ever need a warrant to search a cellphone at the border. The issue recurs often. Customs and Border Protection conducted more than 55,000 electronic-device searches in fiscal year 2025, including a growing number involving U.S. citizens.

Anibowei directly challenges the directives authorizing these searches. As the Fifth Circuit itself recognized, the case “turns squarely and solely” on whether the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant to search a phone at the border. That makes it a clear opportunity for the Supreme Court to settle the question.

The Court has already explained why rules designed for physical objects cannot simply be applied to digital devices. As PPSA’s brief puts it, “A phone is not one more container.” Treating it as one, the Court said in Riley v. California, is “like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon.” A phone search can reveal “a broad array of private information never found in a home in any form.”

A Fly on the Wall

The stakes extend beyond the privacy of individual travelers. Jake Laperruque of the Center for Democracy and Technology reports that CBP retains border data for 15 years. As of 2022, approximately 2,700 DHS personnel were authorized to access that database. Laperruque warns that automated scanning could let DHS mine sensitive information from tens of thousands of copied devices “in a manner previously inconceivable.” 

CBP is actively seeking AI tools to scan, sort, and analyze data from phones and other devices. Laperruque points to Cellebrite, a company with CBP contracts, whose Pathfinder tool promises investigators the ability to be a “Fly on the Wall” and reconstruct what someone did on a device at a given time. He warns that database searches lack judicial oversight and limits on their purpose – an easy pathway to politically motivated abuses.

A border exception designed to catch possible contraband entering the country should not become a means to collect and search Americans’ digital histories. The Supreme Court should hear Anibowei’s case and make clear that, for Americans, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t end at the border.

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