“The number of warrantless device searches at the border and the significant invasion of privacy they represent is only increasing. In Fiscal Year 2022, CBP conducted an all-time high of 45,499 device searches.”
United States v. Smith is the first ruling that CBP needs a warrant to search a phone at the border. Until now the agency treated your phone like a suitcase, and searched 45,499 of them last year. The Supreme Court required a warrant for an arrestee’s phone back in 2014 in Riley and has ducked the border question ever since. One district judge in New York is not the law of the land, and CBP knows it.