Airport phone searches hit record high amid Trump traveler crackdown
Border agents are searching phones at record rates. As reported in Wired, U.S. Customs and Border Protection conducted over 55,000 device searches during fiscal year 2025 — a 17 percent jump from the previous year — and the pace accelerated dramatically in recent months.
The uptick coincides with the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. What was once a rare airport hassle has become routine checkpoint theater, powered by an expanding arsenal of forensic tools like Cellebrite UFED and GrayKey. These systems can bypass device locks, retrieve deleted files, and rebuild activity timelines in minutes. "What once took weeks of lab work is now a standard procedure."Earlier this year the CBP put out a request for new tech to help it search for data on people's phones," reports Wired. "Even with the current tools, what once took weeks of lab work is now a routine checkpoint procedure."
Between July and September alone, CBP searched 16,173 phones. A CBP spokesperson insisted that searches are "exceedingly rare" and that "the likelihood of a search has not increased," which is technically true if you're bad at math.
