US federal judge rules border phone searches of Palestinian American violated Fourth Amendment – JURIST

A federal judge rule Thursday that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents breached The Fourth Amendment the rights of Osama Abu Irshaid, the executive director of American Muslims for Palestinewhen they searched his cell phones twice at a US international airport in 2024. The court did not find that the searches amounted to First Amendment Retaliation.

U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff of the Eastern District of Virginia issued the ruling after a bench trial held in May. Dr. Irshaid, an American citizen, unsuspecting government after CBP officers subjected his phones to forensic searches upon his return to the country in 2024. At the time, Irshaid was carrying two cell phones and offered one of his phones for officers to search. One of the CBP officers at the scene said that “people who are traveling with burner phones are trying to hide something.”

The court found that among the factors CBP Officer Cowles cited in seeking approval for the forensic search was a May 2024 paper by Congressman James Comer of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. The letter alleged misconduct by Irshaid’s organization, as well as financial ties to Hamas.

Cowles testified that he did nothing to verify the contents of the letter. The court found that the letter, along with other information relied on by Cowles, did not constitute value reasonable doubt required to justify a non-routine forensic search of a US citizen’s telephone. Judge Nachmanoff wrote that the evidence linking Irshaid to any national security concerns was too thin to justify searches.

However, on the First Amendment retaliation claim, Judge Nachmanoff ruled in favor of the government. He held that while the searches were constitutionally unreasonable, the evidence did not establish that CBP officers harbored any “retaliatory bias” toward Irshaid’s pro-Palestinian advocacy. The court found that the officers had acted out of “good-faith independent misjudgment” and not hostility to protected speech.

The court ordered both parties to file a brief within 21 days on the issue of appropriate legal remedies.