[7] Pursuant to this authority, customs officers may generally stop and search the property of any traveler entering the United States at random (even if based largely on ethnic profiles).
[14] In 2014, the US Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Riley v. California, which held that law enforcement officials violated the Fourth Amendment when they searched an arrestee's cellphone without a warrant.
"[15] In 2013, before Riley was decided, the Ninth Circuit court of appeals held that reasonable suspicion is required to subject a computer seized at the border to forensic examination.
United States v. Vergara is the first federal circuit court to address whether Riley's reasoning extends to a search of a traveler's cell phone at the border.
[17] The dissent, authored by Judge Jill Pryor, disagreed, concluding that, "my answer to the question of what law enforcement officials must do before forensically searching a cell phone at the border, like the Supreme Court’s answer to manually searching a cell phone incident to arrest, 'is accordingly simple—get a warrant.
[19] Notably, Vergara has called upon the Court to resolve the level of Fourth Amendment process necessary for warrantless cell phone searches.
[21] In May of 2018, in U.S. v. Kolsuz, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that it is unconstitutional for US border officials to subject visitors' devices to forensic searches without individualized suspicion of criminal wrongdoing.
[23] The existence of a circuit split is one of the factors that the Supreme Court of the United States considers when deciding whether to grant review of a case.
[24] CBP is tasked with enforcing some other border and international commerce laws, including inspecting for invasive species of plants and animals.