Such searches pre-date the new Trump administration, and Customs and Border Protection says it conducts them to detect “digital contraband, terrorism-related content, and information relevant to visitor admissibility.”
“Claims that CBP is searching more electronic media due to administration change are false,” CBP Assistant Commissioner Hilton Beckham told NBC News in an emailed statement.
“Allegations that political beliefs trigger inspections or removals are baseless and irresponsible,” he added.
Such searches are not new to travelers from parts of the world who already face stringent visa requirements — Chinese students arriving in the U.S., for example, have complained in recent years of being increasingly subject to interrogation and detention on national security grounds.
But many of the cases in recent weeks have involved travelers from countries such as France, Germany and Canada — longtime allies with which the U.S. shares intelligence, has frequent cultural exchanges and does hundreds of billions of dollars in trade. Several of those held have spoken out about being scrutinized and sometimes locked up for days at the border.
Last week, France’s interior minister said a French researcher had been turned away by U.S. border agents after they found messages on his phone criticizing the Trump administration. The CBP said searches of the researcher’s electronic media devices — they have not been named by the French authorities — led to the “discovery of proprietary information” from a U.S. laboratory.
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