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U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents searched more phones at the border than ever this year, with some officers turning tourists away for liking or sharing memes about Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, according to reports. The number of phones probed by border agents jumped by 17 percent during the last year, with the CBP digging into more than 55,424 devices, according to statistics seen by Wired. Just a year earlier, the CBP had conducted 47,000 searches. The aggressive increase in inspections has coincided with a collapse in the number of tourists visiting the U.S., as people from Canada and Europe seek alternative vacation destinations. Border officials are legally entitled to search the phones of anyone entering the U.S., including those of citizens and green card holders. Basic searches involve federal agents manually scrolling through a phone, while advanced searches use advanced tools to copy and analyze data. Advanced searches do require officers to have reasonable suspicion or cause, but failure to comply can result in detentions. However, a worrying trend in rejections at the border has led to concerns that the current administration is using the stringent rules to prevent the admittance of people who have been critical of Trump. A French government minister said that a scientist had been denied entry to the United States after messages expressing criticisms of Trump’s presidency were found. “I learned with concern that a French researcher who was traveling to a conference near Houston was denied entry to the United States before being expelled,” Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister of higher education and research, said in a statement published by Le Monde in March. “This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy,” he continued. Months later, in June, a Norwegian tourist claimed that he was denied entry into the United States after border officials discovered a meme depicting a bloated, bald JD Vance on his device. Mads Mikkelsen, 21, said that he was forced to turn over his phone for inspection after border officials threatened him with a $5,000 fine or five years in prison if he failed to comply. The decision to reject his application was allegedly based on the claim that the meme had been found on his device. The story was dismissed as “FALSE” by the CBP on X. “Mads Mikkelsen was not denied entry for any memes or political reasons, it was for his admitted drug use,” the agency wrote. At the time, Mikkelsen admitted that he had spoken to CBP officers but claimed their concerns centered on the meme and a second picture depicting a wooden pipe he had built. That same month, Alastair Kitchen, an Australian writer, said on BlueSky that he was “detained and deported from the USA” because of his “reporting on the Columbia student protests.” Foreign tourism to the United States has plummeted in recent months, with travel from Canada and Mexico into the U.S. falling by 20 percent, according to figures from the US Travel Association seen by Reuters. Meanwhile, Sebastian Ebel, the chief executive of TUI, told The Guardian that European tourists are choosing to visit Canada or Asia because of concerns about the “atmosphere” and what they “hear from border control” in the U.S. The Independent has contacted the CBP and the DHS for comment.
