U.S. Border Agents Search 52,080 Devices in Nine Months, Approaching Record

U.S. border officers inspected 52,080 electronic devices in the first three quarters of the current fiscal year.

The number of searches of phones, laptops, and other gadgets at American entry points climbed by more than 32 percent compared to the same period last year. Customs and Border Protection data show that agents searched 39,251 devices between October 2024 and June 2025. In the current cycle, from October 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026, that figure jumped to 52,080. This pace puts the agency on track to exceed the all-time high of 55,424 devices searched in fiscal 2025.

The agency breaks down these inspections into two categories. Officers conducted 47,517 basic searches, which they can perform without any specific reason to suspect a traveler of wrongdoing. The remaining 4,564 were advanced searches. These allow agents with reasonable suspicion of illegal activity or national security concerns to analyze or copy the contents of a device.

Customs and Border Protection has not provided a detailed breakdown of where these searches took place. The agency declined to specify how many occurred at the Canadian border versus the Mexican border, or how they divided between airports and land crossings. It also withheld the total number of travelers who entered the country during this period and the split between U.S. citizens and non-citizens. These details are typically included in annual reports but are absent from this interim data.

Jessica Turner, a public affairs officer for the agency, stated that the searches affect a small portion of the population. She noted that in 2025, 419 million travelers entered the country. Turner wrote that only 0.01 percent of travelers had their devices searched year over year. She said the inspections aim to find digital contraband, terrorism-related content, and information relevant to admissibility decisions.

Esha Bhandari, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, argued that the rise in searches requires greater congressional oversight. She said it is difficult to determine the causes of the increase because the government does not explain its reasoning. Bhandari observed that when the government holds this power, it tends to use it in a way that harms traveler privacy. She described the anecdotes her group receives from travelers, including questions about political opinions and religious practice, as troubling.

In January, Customs and Border Protection updated its guidelines to explicitly include items such as flash drives, SIM cards, GPS systems, drones, vehicle infotainment systems, and smart watches in the scope of device searches. The update also added the smuggling of narcotics, firearms, and transnational theft of proprietary information to the list of crimes these searches are meant to detect. Bhandari said these changes altered only a few procedures at the margins and suggested the increase may reflect technological advances and a lack of federal court limits on government authority.

Laura Dawson, executive director of the Future Borders Coalition, said the increase is hard to evaluate without knowing the location and volume of traffic. She pointed to the World Cup this summer as a factor that may have brought a more diverse mix of visitors. Dawson also cited a greater focus on border security and closer cooperation between Canadian and U.S. border services, particularly regarding human smuggling and the Ryan Wedding case. She stated that having more scrutiny at the border is actually a positive in many ways.

Dawson noted that device searches remain rare despite alarming stories on social media. By her calculations, one in 9,000 crossings leads to a U.S. inspection. On the Canadian side, one in 14,000 crossings leads to a search. Canadian officials have searched a much smaller share of devices than their U.S. counterparts in recent years, and those numbers have been falling. The Canada Border Services Agency says its 2026 statistics are not yet available.