Airport, border detentions: Is it safe to travel to the US?

High-profile deportations, detentions and denials of US travelers are making Americans nationwide wonder who’s safe to enter and leave the country.

With these increased stops and searches at US borders and airports, electronic device searches are at an all-time high.

Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents searched over 47,000 electronic devices last year, up tenfold from a decade ago — and “that number is going to explode,” said Richard Herman, founder of immigration firm Herman Legal Group, at a May 2 American Community Media briefing on travelers’ rights at the US border.

Device searches and students

“The US is no stranger to making the Constitution a document of convenience. We’ve interned American citizens in camps during World War Two; whether Japanese, German or Italian Americans, we’ve done atrocious things to our own people,” Herman continued. “What’s different this time are the vast amounts of technology that can be deployed by the government against us, whether facial recognition technology or AI.”

While device searches are higher than ever, however, they still impact only a fraction of a fraction of US travelers.

In the fiscal year 2024, CBP processed over 420 million travelers into the US.

Of these, 47,047, or less than 0.01%, had their electronic devices searched. 90% of these searches were “basic,” involving investigation of messages and content, as opposed to “advanced,” involving forensic data downloads.

Nevertheless, international students are disproportionately affected by these technology ramp-ups.

Beginning in March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials cross-referenced 1.3 million foreign students through SEVIS, a federal criminal database, and found about 6,400 “hits” — many for minor police interactions, with charges either dropped or never brought — that led to all targeted students’ school records being automatically terminated and roughly 3,000 visas being revoked.

This spawned over 100 lawsuits resulting in dozens of restraining orders issued by judges nationwide. On April 25, the Trump administration reversed the terminations and started developing a new policy to vet foreign students.

“The volume of calls we received at the end of the march through the first two weeks of April was outstanding — over 300, especially students on the F-1 visa, many Indian, saying their SEVIS statuses got terminated … for criminal checks as simple as a speeding ticket or not turning on your signal light,” said Madhurima Paturi, founder and partner at Paturi Law.

These students were part of the thousands of terminated visas eventually reversed by the Trump administration.

However, many self-deported on the grounds of unlawful presence before the reversals because “with the F-1, your status is gone on the same day you’re no longer active,”  she explained. “A lot of them were about to graduate, a lot had work permits … and from the day you receive that email, you can’t go to work, attend class or take your finals.”

“There’s going to be an economic cost for all of this. International students are increasingly saying ‘Why should I come here? It’s not worth it. They don’t want me,’” added Herman.

In 2023, foreign students spent $50 billion in the US, including tuition and living costs; foreign tourists spent $100 billion on leisure; and business travelers spent $23 billion.

While last December, the research group Tourism Economics projected a 8.8 percent growth in foreign visitors and a 16 percent growth in foreign spending for 2025, by early April the group projected a 9.4 percent decline in visitors, amounting to as much as $9 billion lost in spending.

“I call this period of time ‘The Great Unwelcoming,’” Herman said. “Airports now are not just a place to land and walk through customs. They’re immigration enforcement zones, and it’s not just foreign nationals. We had multiple cases of American citizen lawyers being detained, their electronics being confiscated and attorney-client privacy privilege nearly invaded.”

“Everybody should be concerned, not just the immigrant community. It’s not like they’re going to flip a switch and your rights come back,” he added.

Know your rights

“US citizens do have an absolute right to re-enter the United States,” said Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR-SFBA). “But they don’t have the right to hassle-free travel — that’s a privilege.”

“They could detain you, question you, they could search your belongings, including your electronic devices,” she continued. “So make sure you’re fully prepared, if need be, to say things like ‘I’m going to choose to remain silent’ and ‘Why is that question relevant to my re entry?’”

Billoo advised all travelers to disable biometric ID from their devices “as you can be forced to use your fingerprint or face to unlock your phone, you can never be forced to turn over your password … If they take away your phone, they’ll be required to give you a receipt, and they’ll still be required to talk to a supervisor or judge to get further into your phone than they could get if you didn’t give them the password.”

For non-citizens including green card holders, who have no absolute right to re-enter the country, her advice is stricter: Minimize non-essential travel.

Billoo said the most “difficult” call she received was from “about six weeks ago from a student visa holder in good standing on all accounts, who was from one of the published countries on the eve of when we thought another ‘Muslim ban’ was coming … He said ‘I’m engaged. My wedding is set for a few weeks from now. Should I go?’ I explained that he might not be able to return if the ban was implemented, and he chose to delay his wedding.”

“It’s a difficult decision for non-citizens at the border: ‘Am I going to assert my right to remain silent and compromise my ability to re-enter, or am I going to sacrifice privacy and potentially endanger not just myself but the people connected to me?’” said Billoo. “Less than .01% of people are impacted by this, but one of its intentions is to cause everyone to be fearful.”

A major contributor to this widespread fear are CBP officers asking some legal permanent residents to sign Form I-407, voluntarily forfeiting their green card.

“Folks that have signed this are reporting being misled about the consequences of not signing it, and not fully understanding what they’re signing. They were told in some cases that they could no longer re-enter the US if they didn’t sign,” said Xiao Wang, CEO of immigration help organization Boundless, referring to his clients. “Definitely do not sign any documentation before having counsel.”

While legal residents have no right to an attorney while being initially detained and questioned by CBP, they can hire an attorney during long-term detention and do have a right to a hearing before an immigration judge before forfeiting their green card.

Permanent residents also have “a legal right to re-enter the US unless a judge decides otherwise, or unless you fall under a few criteria,” said Wang. “One of them is if they’ve been absent for a continuous period over 180 days, or six months, which could be interpreted as abandoning their claim to permanent residency.”

He advised all non-citizen travelers taking trips over six months to apply for a re-entry permit beforehand and to carry “tax returns, leases, pay stubs, bills, anything that shows you have a continued life in the United States.”

“We’re in unprecedented times. Even US citizens are under heightened scrutiny in the way that we haven’t seen before,” added Wang. “The general advice we give is: Know your rights before you go, don’t sign anything you don’t understand, and if something doesn’t feel right, ask questions.” (American Community Media)