... and if they find something they don't like, such as a pro-Palestine text or video, or a criticism of Donald Dumb's nefarious policies, you might end up shackled in a dingy concentration camp in the swamps of Louisiana. That would be another "Grand Dérangement" for the Québécois among you.
So, Canadians, boycott the US. Do not spend your dollars to help what has become your country's enemy. DON'T TRAVEL TO THE US. GO TO A CARRIBEAN ISLAND INSTEAD. THEIR CULTURES ARE BY FAR MORE INTERESTING AND RICHER THAN THAT OF THE BORING AND DUMB AIRHEADS IN FLORIDA OR TEXAS.
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Canada warns travelers of US border agents’ authority to search electronic devices
Sat, April 5, 2025
The Canadian government is warning citizens visiting the United States that US border officials have the authority to search travelers’ electronic devices – including phones, laptops, and tablets – without providing a reason.
In a revised travel advisory posted online, it urges Canadians to “expect scrutiny” when crossing the border and warns that refusing to comply involves risks including device seizure, travel delays, or the denial of entry for non-US citizens.
Under US law, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents may demand passwords to unlock devices during inspections. Travelers who refuse the demand risk having their electronics confiscated and may face long delays.
The advisory recommends placing devices in airplane mode before crossing to prevent unintended downloads of remote files, which could complicate screenings.
The move follows recent incidents involving such searches. Last month, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese assistant professor and physician at Brown University, was deported to Lebanon after US agents at Boston Logan International Airport discovered deleted photos of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on her phone.
The existence of the photos was outlined in a court filing obtained by CNN affiliate WCVB.
“In explaining why these multiple photos were deleted by her one to two days before she arrived at Logan Airport, Dr. Alawieh stated that she did not want to give authorities the perception that she supports Hezbollah and the Ayatollah politically or militarily,” the filing reads, per WCVB.
While US authorities maintain that device searches are critical for national security, civil liberties groups have long criticized the practice as invasive.
The US Supreme Court has upheld the authority of border agents to conduct warrantless device searches, citing the “border search exception” to the Fourth Amendment.
Canada updates travel advice to warn of U.S. border officers' power to search electronic devices
CBC
Sat, April 5, 2025
The federal government has quietly updated its online travel advice to remind Canadians to "expect scrutiny" from border patrol officers if they travel to the United States.
A website with official advice for travellers heading south was updated with a paragraph about the "significant" discretion officers have when it comes to deciding who enters their country — including the power to search phones and laptops.
"U.S. authorities strictly enforce entry requirements. Expect scrutiny at ports of entry, including of electronic devices. Comply and be forthcoming in all interactions with border authorities. If you are denied entry, you could be detained while awaiting deportation," the website now reads.
Agents with U.S. Border Patrol have long had the power to ask to search travellers' belongings, but the Canadian government updated its online guidance to include the extra warning this week — a change that comes as the nations' long-friendly relationship breaks down under the pressure of the Trump administration's war on trade.
An immigration lawyer and a privacy lawyer said travellers who are concerned about their privacy should understand border patrol officers' powers and decide how much risk they're comfortable taking before they leave home. Two of the experts suggested travelling with a burner phone and leaving their actual phones at home.
Heather Segal, an immigration lawyer and founding partner of Segal Immigration Law in Toronto, told CBC News on Monday that her inbox is flooded with questions.
"There's been much more heightened security and heightened investigations at the border," she said. "There is just tremendous fear, fear for numerous reasons. First of all, there's fear of getting detained. There's fear of not getting into the United States."
No warrant needed!
Away from the border, law enforcement officials need a search warrant to look through someone's phone or laptop. But U.S. Border Patrol officers can look through a mobile phone, check comments made on social media and examine a laptop without a warrant. They can also take devices or download all of their contents.
"For many people, the phone is a window into the soul. It's got your letters to your spouse, it's got your calendar showing all the people you've met with. And so for many people, they might want to take precautions to keep that information secure," said Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, based in San Francisco.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics show 0.1 per cent of people crossing the border had their electronic devices searched in 2024. Sometimes, Schwartz said, agents will ask for a search based on their gut — which can be through either explicit or implicit bias, leading to discrimination.
"When will the border guard choose to search somebody? It could be no reason. It could be that they've been searched before. It could be that the officer thinks there's something suspicious. Unfortunately, in general, the officer does not need any kind of suspicion in order to make the ask," said Schwartz, whose non-partisan organization focuses on defending civil liberties with digital material.
Border guards are supposed to be scanning for evidence that a traveller might commit a crime in the U.S. or violate the terms of their entry visa, but negative statements about the country or its president might make them look harder.
"What they should be scanning for is evidence that someone is going to commit a crime or violate the terms of their entry visa. But once the officer is noodling around inside the phone, you know that there's a risk they're going to go beyond that. And as you say, they might just be looking at someone who says, 'I am angry at the president of the United States' or 'I'm proud to be Canadian and it makes me mad that the United States has just imposed tariffs on us or whatever it is," Schwartz said.
"They should be not looking for those kinds of opinions, but if they find those kinds of opinions, maybe they'll look even harder for potential evidence of law breaking or visa breaking."
Schwartz said you can refuse a search, but officers can deny you entry to the U.S. They could also seize the phone and try to unlock it themselves or detain the traveller for several hours.
The Canadian government's current risk rating for travel to the U.S. is still set at low, advising Canadians to keep taking "normal security precautions."
Segal and Schwartz acknowledged how many people are feeling uneasy. The latter said travellers have to decide how much risk they're comfortable taking.
"For a person who wants to protect themselves, obviously, the choices are to not go to the border at all or go to the border and hope for the best. If the border guard demands the phone, there are pros and cons of unlocking. There's pros and cons of refusing and potentially being bounced," he said.
"What people have to decide before they get to the border is how much privacy intrusion they can tolerate."
THIS IS WHAT AWAITS YOU IF YOU TRY TO CROSS THE US-CANADA BORDER:
Canadian detained for 11 days by U.S. immigration speaks out for others stuck in limbo
CBC
Sat, April 5, 2025
Jasmine Mooney, 35, travelled to the U.S. many times in her life. She's worked as an actress, owned bars and was marketing health products when she was detained while trying to apply for a work visa. (Dillon Hodgin/CBC - image credit)
Jasmine Mooney's smile went viral after the 35-year-old Canadian was taken into U.S. custody at the Mexican border in March, but her story is now whispered in fear.
On March 3, Mooney tried to get her work visa renewed, entering at an immigration office at the Mexico-San Diego border, against a U.S. lawyer's advice. Instead she ended up being denied, and then, all of a sudden, detained.
Mooney spent 11 days in custody — off and on in cement cells she says are dubbed "ice boxes" — with little more than a thin foil emergency blanket. Mooney says she faced numerous transfers, humiliating medical tests, degrading treatment and no answers — despite pleas to let her pay for her own flight home.
She at first refused food and couldn't sleep, but then forced herself to get up and help others.
"It breaks you. That place breaks you into a million pieces. It is so disgusting what goes on in there," Mooney told CBC News in an interview on Thursday.
Her case is one of a series of instances involving non-U.S. travellers that has travellers and legal experts concerned.
Mooney's story has become a sort of warning, a harbinger of a shifting attitude toward Canadians travelling or trying to work in the U.S.
Immigration lawyers are urging people who need visa renewals to opt to go to airports, where they can be processed on Canadian soil, with no risk of getting detained if they are deemed ineligible.
Mooney's Blaine, Wash.-based immigration lawyer Len Saunders said her case is scaring Canadian travellers.
"It has a huge chilling effect on Canadians going to the United States," said Saunders.
He advised her not to try to reapply for her visa at a Mexican entry point, given changes he saw under the new Trump administration.
"She wasn't trying to do anything illegal. She thought she was doing the right thing," said Saunders.
"I've never seen a Canadian citizen who's applied for a work visa, either a brand new one or a renewal, being detained like this."
Mooney was at one point held at a San Diego-area prison where a Chinese inmate offered up her phone time enabling Mooney to get her plea out to at least one reporter. At that point, she had no idea that her story had gone viral and so many people were fighting for her freedom. She was released within a few days and left feeling "lucky."
Mooney says she left a lot of women behind when she was released and wants to shine a light into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centres and how people end up trapped there.
"I met a girl who had been in there eight months," she said.
She says the women helped her get out — and urged her to tell their stories. Mooney says there were about 140 women in her unit at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, one of the first places she was held, in the Ysidro Mountains foothills of Otay Mesa overlooking the U.S.-Mexico border.
She describes how most of the women she met had lived in the U.S. illegally and overstayed visas — detained with no warning when they reapplied.
"You meet all of the girls who had trekked from India, from Iran, from Africa, they're covered head to toe in bug bites and scars from their journey and they paid all of this money, gave up everything they owned to come to America and then end up in jail and they're all most likely getting shipped back to their countries," said Mooney.
'Scorched earth' approach to immigration
Mooney, who grew up in Yukon and had been living in B.C. until last year, is one in a series of recent U.S. immigration detention cases that have caught attention internationally.
In January, German tattoo artist Jessica Brösche was was held for more than a month after border agents assumed she'd work illegally. A 28-year-old British backpacker was held for 10 days after trying to enter Washington State from Canada. She'd been living with host families trading housework for board on a tourist visa. A couple returning from Tijuana ended up handcuffed: U.S. citizen Lennon Tyler was chained to a bench, her German fiance Lucas Sielaff held for 16 days for violating his 90 day tourist permit.
NPR reported the story of a Guatemalan immigrant named Sarahi who accidentally drove the wrong way across the Ambassador Bridge trying to go to Costco — and ended up held for five days in a windowless office near the bridge with her daughters, two U.S. citizens aged one and five.
"I don't think that the Americans are targeting Canadians. I think they're targeting anyone immigrating or visiting the United States. There's this heightened scrutiny," said Saunders. "It's almost a scorched earth whether you're coming in and applying for a work visa or coming in as a visitor."
He's urging anybody reapplying for visas to do it at an airport — where they are safe on Canadian soil and can't be detained.
However, he says he's not shocked that some Canadians are just opting to skip any U.S. travel
Jasmine Mooney of B.C. grew up in Whitehorse.
Mooney's immigration lawyer Len Saunders said her case is scaring Canadian travellers. "It has a huge chilling effect on Canadians going to the United States," he said. (Submitted by Alexis Eagles)
Mooney first hit immigration trouble last spring. She'd applied for her work visa at the Blaine, Wash., border office and was denied. The officer had noticed a missing employer letterhead.
She tried again at the San Diego border in April of 2024. The visa was issued without a problem, so she returned to California and worked.
Mooney says she didn't have a problem again — despite multiple border crossings — until she headed back into the U.S. after a visit to family in November.
Upon her return, she says a border agent told her that her visa had been improperly processed. She was interrogated and that work visa was revoked, after border officials noted her product contained hemp.
After a few months in Canada, she was offered another job and says she was told by another lawyer that it was acceptable to try to reapply.
"The worst that I thought would happen is that I would get denied," she said.
She headed to the San Diego immigration office that first processed her visa on March 3. After hours there explaining her situation, she says the officer told her she'd have to reapply through a consulate. Then Mooney says the female officer added: "You didn't do anything wrong, you are not in trouble, you are not a criminal."
She was told they'd have to send her back to Canada. But as Mooney sat searching for flights home on her phone she says that a man appeared and told her to come with him.
She knew something was way off when they pulled the shoelaces from her sneakers.
"Later I found out that's so you don't hang yourself in jail," said Mooney.
A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says that Mooney was processed in light of an executive order signed on Jan. 21. (Gregory Bull/The Associated Press)
CBC News reached out to U.S. officials for more details about her case.
A statement from Sandra Grisolia of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement explained that Mooney was processed in accordance with the "Securing Our Borders" Executive Order dated Jan. 21.
It states that all aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the U.S., regardless of nationality.
Saunders says that Mooney plans to appeal her revoked visa and loves the U.S. She was pursuing a marketing career there selling a hemp-infused water product – after running bars and restaurants in Vancouver.
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