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US citizens returning to the US risk detention & a social media check by CBP [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-05
Unlike foreigners and green card holders, American citizens have an absolute right to re-enter America if they have been abroad. That's what being a citizen means, after all. But re-entry does not come without scrutiny. Everyone can expect to be searched for contraband and illegal substances. But now Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has stretched that invasion of privacy to possibly ransack through your political thinking.
CPB has the legal right to stop the citizen and ask questions for as long as they damn well please — as long as it is for a 'reasonable' amount of time. Sadly, the definition of reasonable is in the eye of the beholder.
What is likely to trigger the CBP to detain a citizen? Who knows. However, being flagged in a government database or selected for advanced screening increases your odds. Sadly, what causes someone to be databased or flagged is anyone's guess. In 2004, Sen. Ted Kennedy discovered he had been flagged when he was stopped and questioned five times at airports because his name had appeared on a "no-fly" list. It took him and his staff three weeks to get off the list.
Us regular folks could count on being in endless aviation limbo at the best of times. And this is not the best of times.
Immigration officers can legally request to view your cell phone or other devices. If you refuse to give the agent your passwords, they can detain you or seize your devices and hold on to them for weeks or longer.
Now, the word is out that citizens should consider deleting social media applications such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter from their devices before an immigration officer inspects them.
Orwellian?
Not according to CBP Assistant Commissioner Hilton Beckham. He denies that his agency has any interest in people's political beliefs, whether they are citizens, green card holders, or on a legitimate visa. In his words:
"Claims that CBP is searching more electronic media due to the administration change are false,. CBP's search numbers are consistent with increases since 2021, and less than 0.1 percent of travelers have their devices searched. These searches are conducted to detect digital contraband, terrorism-related content, and information relevant to visitor admissibility—all of which play a critical role in national security. Allegations that political beliefs trigger inspections or removals are baseless and irresponsible."
I do not find his words reassuring. Dictatorships often come to power by sounding reasonable. When the authorities step up surveillance on the grounds that they are just looking for bad apples, it does not take long for them to suspect an increasing number of people — citizens as well as foreigners — of being bad apples. And to cast an increasingly wider net to find them.
It gets worse.
It is not just returning from abroad that might put the citizen in the CBP frame. The 'border' agency is now questioning citizens on domestic flights landing nowhere near a border. Rolling Stone reported in February that soon after Trump announced his massive expulsion effort, passengers on a domestic Delta flight from San Francisco to New York were told to show their identity documents to uniformed agents of the CBP upon their arrival at JFK airport.
But not to worry. According to the report, the CBP demand for IDs was completely voluntary.
A CBP spokesperson wrote to Rolling Stone on Friday to insist that the ID check on the jetbridge was "consensual assistance from passengers aboard the flight" and that "CBP did not compel" anyone to show ID.
Let's be honest. How many people faced with a uniformed federal agent carrying a gun asking to see their papers will refuse to do so? There is legal compulsion and situational compulsion. Hell, what if you are in a hurry and don't have time to claim your rights? The agent is on the clock. They are getting paid to harass you — while your wasted time is uncompensated.
Most people will just show their documents. That is how fascism spreads. The citizens get inured — like the frog in slowly heating water — to an ever-increasing assault on their civil liberties and privacy.
The article continued:
CBP agents inspected passenger identifications on the jetbridge by the door of the aircraft. A CBP spokesman insisted to Rolling Stone that this action is "nothing new" and that there is "no new policy." But the unusual – and legally questionable – search of domestic travelers comes days after the Department of Homeland Security outlined its plans to implement President Trump's sweeping executive order targeting millions of "removable aliens" for deportation.
It turned out that CPB was assisting an unnamed agency. And the whole exercise in government interference was a waste of everyone's time.
In a statement to Rolling Stone, a spokesperson for CBP said the agency had been asked "to assist in locating an individual possibly aboard Delta flight 1583" who had been "ordered removed by an immigration judge." The spokesman added that CBP agents "requested identification from those on the flight" but that ultimately "[t]he individual was determined not to be on the flight."
We are less than three months into the Trump regime. The abuse has only just begun. The courts look like they are holding the line against the administration's unconstitutional actions. However, the convicted criminal in the Oval Office — who has been granted an unfettered license to pursue his 'official duties' by the Supreme Court — shows no interest in obeying judges.
What will those Supreme Court Justices who gave Trump carte blanche to commit crimes in office think when they are detained for some trumped-up charge? They probably think they are safe — but fear is the tyrant's tool. And rounding up the Supreme Court would be the ultimate middle finger to the American experiment.
Could it happen? Of course, it could. The evidence suggests it has already started.
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