Two Florida-based U.S. citizens say U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized their phones during separate airport inspections in September 2026. Attorney Jalal “Jay” Shehadeh and researcher and immigrant-rights advocate Thomas Kennedy have each asked a federal court to return his phone or order the destruction of data they believe the government retained. Their filings raise a difficult question: how far the government’s border-search authority reaches into the contents of a phone. Neither filing is a court finding, and the constitutional rules remain unsettled.
What happened to Jay Shehadeh at Newark?
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which represents Shehadeh, says he returned from visiting family in Palestine on September 17, 2026, and was held at Newark Liberty International Airport for roughly four hours. According to ADC, Shehadeh told officers that his phone contained privileged communications about active client matters and refused consent to a search three times. CBP took the phone, which ADC says the agency continued to hold without a warrant or criminal charge.
In an interview with Reason, Shehadeh, a former Florida assistant state attorney who had Global Entry, said he missed a connecting flight after agents moved him between officers. He recalled an agent asking which apps contained privileged material. “I’m sitting there and nobody’s even telling me why I’m here,” he told Reason. “It’s a very bizarre thing to be an American coming into America, being put into a room like this when you’re coming home.” His account describes what he experienced; it does not establish why CBP selected him for inspection.
ADC filed a time-sensitive motion on September 26 under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g). It asks the court to return the phone, require destruction of any extracted data, disclose what CBP did with the device, and hold an expedited hearing. The filing does not establish that agents searched the phone or breached attorney-client privilege.
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What happened to Thomas Kennedy at Miami?
Kennedy’s September 24 motion says he returned from a vacation in Turkey and Egypt on September 6, 2026, and a passport kiosk directed him to secondary inspection at Miami International Airport. The motion alleges that CBP questioned him about his trip, books, magazines, and work, then seized his phone after he refused to hand it over.
The filing identifies Kennedy as a Florida International University doctoral student studying immigration and surveillance, a policy consultant at the Florida Immigrant Coalition, and an organizer working with immigrant-rights groups. He says his messaging apps and email contained sensitive communications with clients and legal advocates. His motion also says officers asked him about books including The Palestine Laboratory and King of Kings, as well as vintage Egyptian magazines.
Kennedy asks for the return of his phone or destruction of data he believes may have been extracted from it or retained from remote accounts. His motion does not establish that agents accessed his accounts. Reason reported that Kennedy said he later received alerts about attempted logins from unfamiliar users, but the available reporting does not independently connect those alerts to CBP.
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What does Rule 41(g) let them ask a court to do?
Rule 41(g) provides a route for a person to ask a federal court to return property seized by the government. In these cases, the motions ask for more than the physical devices: they also seek relief concerning copies or other data the plaintiffs believe CBP may have retained. The requested remedies are claims for a judge to consider, not orders already granted.
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Kennedy told Reason that an agent framed handing over the phone as a choice between making the inspection easier or having the process take longer while CBP kept the device. That is Kennedy’s account of the exchange, not a ruling on what the law permitted. Neither of the reviewed filings establishes the ultimate outcome of its case.
Can border agents search a phone when someone enters the United States?
The border-search exception gives the government authority to inspect people and goods entering the country. The disputed constitutional question is how the Fourth Amendment limits searches of the extensive personal information stored on electronic devices. The Supreme Court has not established a single nationwide rule resolving whether, or under what conditions, officers may search phone contents at the border.
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One distinction in CBP policy is between “basic” and “advanced” searches. A September 2026 amicus brief by the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association describes CBP Directive 3340-049B, effective January 1, 2026, as treating a basic search as a manual inspection and an advanced search as one involving external equipment. The brief says the directive permits basic searches without individualized suspicion and requires either individualized suspicion or a national-security concern for advanced searches. It also says the directive recognizes that binding circuit precedent may impose different requirements. This is the brief’s account of the directive, not a judicial ruling on its validity or application.
The same brief describes appellate decisions as divided: it says several circuits allow searches without individualized suspicion, while the Fourth and Ninth Circuits require suspicion for forensic searches, though their formulations differ. These are the brief’s descriptions of appellate precedent, not a Supreme Court rule. Kennedy’s inspection was in Florida, in the Eleventh Circuit; Shehadeh’s was in New Jersey, in the Third Circuit. The reviewed materials do not fully establish the controlling rule for each district, so the two incidents should not be treated as governed by one national standard.
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What do the filings say about privileged and sensitive data?
Shehadeh says he warned officers that his device held privileged client communications. Kennedy’s motion describes sensitive communications with clients and legal advocates on his phone. Those facts make the potential consequences of a device search especially serious, but they do not by themselves show that CBP copied or read the material, or that any privilege was violated.
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ADC legal director and counsel Jenin Younes told Reason that the requested remedy includes a ruling on Fourth Amendment and First Amendment concerns. That is counsel’s position on what the case should establish; the motion’s requested relief is not proof that a court has accepted those arguments.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What do the electronic-device search figures actually show?
Two figures in recent coverage refer to different periods and must not be conflated. They count searches of electronic devices, not phones alone; the WIRED report says CBP’s quarterly figures are not broken down by device type.
| Figure | Period and attribution | What it represents |
|---|---|---|
| 14,899 | April–June 2025, reported by WIRED in August 2025 | CBP electronic-device searches; WIRED also reported 13,824 basic and 1,075 advanced searches for that quarter. |
| 32,349 | First two quarters of 2026, attributed to CBP statistics in a September 2026 amicus brief by the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association | Electronic-device searches. The accessible source for this figure is the brief’s attribution, not a directly reviewed CBP statistics page. |
Reason’s October 1, 2026 article described 14,899 searches as occurring from April to June “this year,” but its linked WIRED report is dated August 20, 2025 and places that number in April–June 2025. The 14,899 figure is therefore not a verified 2026 count.
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Has the Supreme Court agreed to decide the issue?
Not as of October 3, 2026. In the related case Anibowei v. Blanche, the Supreme Court docket shows that a petition for review was filed on August 14, 2026. The Court requested a response from the government, due October 29, and distributed the petition for a conference scheduled for October 9. Those are steps in considering the petition; they do not mean the Court has agreed to hear the case.
CBP gave Reason a statement saying searches are conducted to detect “digital contraband, terrorism-related content, and information relevant to visitor admissibility,” which it described as important to national security. Reason reported that the spokesperson did not address the lawsuits. The agency’s general explanation does not establish why either man was inspected or what happened to either phone.
What remains unresolved in the Florida cases?
The motions put the seizure and possible retention of device data before federal courts, but the available filings and reporting do not record a final ruling in either case. They also do not establish that CBP copied either phone, accessed Kennedy’s remote accounts, or caused his reported login alerts. The cases are separate, and their allegations should not be treated as findings about CBP’s conduct or selection rationale.
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