This is even more important than it sounds because the US federal goverment considers 100 miles inland from any international border (including the great lakes, etc) as being "the border". And that is where 80% of the people in the USA live.
I'm reading the statute this comes from [0] and its associated definitions [1] but I don't see that it's as bad as you made it sound. (I don't love it, still.)
The 100 mile "reasonable distance" is used to define where vessels and vehicles may be searched for aliens.
But the warrantless search may only be applied to persons seeking admission for whom an officer has suspicion of reasonable cause for denying the person entry.
Of the 80% of people living within that distance (which is an upper bound, btw; the agents in charge are required to set a bound not to exceed that by taking into account such things as "density of population, possible inconvenience to the traveling public.") almost none can be suspected of being under reasonable cause for denial of entry.
So to do the thing you are fearing, 1) the chief patrol agent has to set the distance to encompass an inappropriately large area in violation of this law, 2) an agent has to stop and search cars randomly, and 3) somehow become suspicious that an occupant is seeking entry and ought to be denied entry, and 4) believe that searching that person's device would reveal information demonstrating that the suspicion is correct.
It's not great, but it's not "80% of Americans can have their devices searched without a warrant".
> The U.S. Border Patrol has stated: "Although motorists are not legally required to answer the questions 'Are you a U.S. citizen, and where are you headed?' they will not be allowed to proceed until the inspecting agent is satisfied that the occupants of vehicles traveling through the checkpoint are legally present in the U.S."
I'm not convinced "the law says you can't do that" is super meaningful in 2026.
Yeah, the law interpreted by a reasonable person isn't the end of the world. But that's not how the DHS's ICE or CBP interpret it or how they operate. And now they're even using their probably illegal interpretation (via internal secret memos) outside of the 100 mile zone.
Which would encompass all large coastal cities, the gulf coast and much of Texas/new Mexico /Arizona / socal due to proximity to Mexican border + Chicago/Michigan/etc due to proximity to Canadian border
> EFF to Fourth Circuit: Electronic Device Searches at the Border Require a Warrant
The 100 mile "reasonable distance" is used to define where vessels and vehicles may be searched for aliens.
But the warrantless search may only be applied to persons seeking admission for whom an officer has suspicion of reasonable cause for denying the person entry.
Of the 80% of people living within that distance (which is an upper bound, btw; the agents in charge are required to set a bound not to exceed that by taking into account such things as "density of population, possible inconvenience to the traveling public.") almost none can be suspected of being under reasonable cause for denial of entry.
So to do the thing you are fearing, 1) the chief patrol agent has to set the distance to encompass an inappropriately large area in violation of this law, 2) an agent has to stop and search cars randomly, and 3) somehow become suspicious that an occupant is seeking entry and ought to be denied entry, and 4) believe that searching that person's device would reveal information demonstrating that the suspicion is correct.
It's not great, but it's not "80% of Americans can have their devices searched without a warrant".
[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1357
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/8/287.1
> The U.S. Border Patrol has stated: "Although motorists are not legally required to answer the questions 'Are you a U.S. citizen, and where are you headed?' they will not be allowed to proceed until the inspecting agent is satisfied that the occupants of vehicles traveling through the checkpoint are legally present in the U.S."
I'm not convinced "the law says you can't do that" is super meaningful in 2026.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Vica_-UEg0Q
Which would encompass all large coastal cities, the gulf coast and much of Texas/new Mexico /Arizona / socal due to proximity to Mexican border + Chicago/Michigan/etc due to proximity to Canadian border