This video and blog guide is intended to help travelers stay informed and aware of their rights—not to assist or promote unlawful behavior. It does not constitute legal advice and I do not encourage or condone any illegal activity.

UPDATED a/o April 12, 2025:  Please Share and Spread the Word

U.S. border policies are changing fast, and both travelers and citizens are facing stricter searches. If you watched my last video you know the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) has the authority to inspect and even confiscate your phone and electronic devices at the border, even if you are a U.S. citizen.

This video is for responsible travelers looking to stay informed—not for illegal activity. Policies change, so stay updated and make the best choices for your trip.

This post contains affiliate links that help me share this information for Free at no charge to you. I never leave home without travel insurance- I like to buy insurance that covers theft and adventure but here’s a trip insurance finder tool  to find a plan that matches your budget. 

Watch the Full Video on Preparing your Phone and Digital Privacy

Learn Anti-theft Bags to Protect your Belongings when you travel

They are looking for asylum seekers,  money laundering, illegal activity, past visa overstays, or hints that you may stay longer than your visa times. Hint of these things when the CBP border agent questions you can flag you for a search.

When you’re at the immigration answering their simple questions,  they’re trying to determine a number of things:

• Purpose of visit
• Intent to stay
• Where you’re staying
• Background
• Travel plans
• Financial situation
• Visa type, past travels and any visa overstays
• How you feel about the U.S. government or president?
• Any intention towards unauthorized or undocumented work.
  • i,.e. A seemingly innocent work-exchange for free accommodation has flagged tourists, not only in the U.S. A UK backpacker Becky Burke, was detained for 19 days for doing a Workaway program exchanging household chores for a room. This suggests that Housesitting and Petsitting may be seen as work as well.

CBP can also scrutinize:

• Political opinions on your social media that are public on your account may trigger suspicion. What’s been under fire recently are anti-Semitic, pro Palestine opinions  and criticisms about the U.S. government and its president.
  • It is not only what you post but if you’ve ‘Commented‘ on a Public post, then this can be seen and scrutinized.
  • Participation in politically sensitive content or protests or criticisms of the U.S. government. They have revoked the visas of over 500 foreign students who supposedly supported anti-US politics.
  • How you feel about the U.S. government or president? Know it’s being taken very seriously. A Canadian couple was given this question- the husband gave a brief and mindfully neutral response. Then the wife chimed in: “Well, we’re glad he’s not our president”.  Visa revoked and they were turned around with a 5 year blacklisted entry to the U.S. Needless to say, CBP is not in a laughing mood, where criticisms are concerned.
• Cash paying apps: can be seen as proof you may be making money outside of your tourist visa  
• Email and phone messages: A French scientist had his visa revoked for anti-Trump comments found in his messages.
• Any travel routes that may appear “shady”. (ie. a lot of short connection stops, an unusual route or last minute bookings performed in 24hours)
• TSA and ICE may make unexpected appearances at the gate — leaving or arriving, especially if it is an airport close to a border or you are coming from a Latin American country. Travelers have claimed to be pulled aside for questioning and some have missed their flights as a result.
  Pro Tip: If you are traveling, always have at the very least, a three hour window between your transfers, even if they gates are close or you’ve booked with the same airlines.

Travelers have been detained and the number is growing

For foreign travelers, anxiety is sparked as there have been recent news of Jasmine Mooney (read her account), Becky Burke (read her account) and other foreign travelers being detained. The immigration border control crackdown is severe and is said to be a lucrative business to some of its detention centers –CoreCivic and Geo Group.  Travelers don’t have time to process what is happening to them, they are not told why they are being detained nor were they given time for a phone call.  This news has not inspired confidence in U.S. and foreign travelers.

Policies are changing daily and aggressively.  ICE is entering zones that were once considered off-limits, detainees do not get due process  and the uptick of visa-revoked travelers grows.

Currently there are 10-13 countries who issued travel warnings about the U.S. but it will expectedly grow to Asia as well.

Read U.S. Travel Bans for 2025

• Whether the CBP confiscates your phone, or it gets stolen or lost,  there’s nothing sensitive on it. No financial data, no work emails, no personal messages that could be misinterpreted. you don’t lose your entire life.

What should be on your travel phone?

• Basic travel apps for navigation, booking, translation tools, currency converters, etc..anything that allows you to solo travel with confidence.

• Important contacts for emergencies: like your embassy, an emergency contact, local 911 and lawyer (if you think you may ever be detained). Tip: You also want this written down too in case your phone goes dead

• A local SIM or eSIM. Using a local SIM or eSIM makes your phone disposable. If confiscated you won’t miss out on important work calls. I personally use Airalo eSIM because it lets me activate data before I land—no fumbling for WiFi at the airport. I also like that I can activate it from my mobile app . You will need to have a SIM of some sort to activate a new iPhone.

• Password Manager: Use a password manager that stores all your passwords in one safe and encrypted place. You want to avoid saving logins on your device and web broswer, where it can be hacked or accessed easily. This is something I would consider deleting before arriving in the U.S. however.

  There are some free password managers, but I use Dashlane. It has a free version that stores up to 25 passwords which is enough to get by on when traveling. I have a premium annual subscription and what I love about it is that it syncs across multiple devices and it automatically logged me in. Super time saver. But it has more features that I just don’t use as my needs are basic. I’ll share my referral link below- for the first 4 signups, we both get 6 months free!

• Copies of your trip itinerary, bookings
• Digital Copies of your Federal issued identification cards and backup ID cards (passport, visa, driver’s license, Trusted Traveler Cards, etc..)
• Make sure it is an unlocked phone that can accept foreign SIM or eSIM cards.

 Do a Factory Reset of your phone

If you’re thinking, “But I need my main phone!”, you can always factory reset your primary phone before returning from your trip and reload your data once you’re home and safely past immigration.

Ways Protect Your Social Media & Online Presence in the future

If you are planning tourism or just returning home to the U.S., it doesn’t hurt to make sure you’re a clean candidate for easy processing.

• You CAN put your phone in checked luggage to the U.S, provided they do not contain lithium ion or lithium metal batteries. 
• Stay up-to-date with changing policies and travel procedures. Things are changing fast and not always following procedures we know. Check U.S. travel advisories.

• Regularly clean your social media and web browsers. Go through privacy settings and delete old activity. Apps often hide these settings under “Privacy” or “Security.” It also affects your feed and the ads shown to you.  Go through each apps’ settings. Often its under Privacy where you can delete past history and turn OFF history settings so nothing is saved to your accounts. Here’s how to turn off tracking on Facebook and Instagram


• Put sensitive and political social media posts on Private. Private posts require forensic exams and the basic CBP search scans your public posts.
• Put your social media account on Private too. Unless you’re a content creator where you need to be a public account, putting your account on Private, allows only your followers to see what you post.

• Be mindful of what you post. We’ve gotten to be a reactive society. We live in a time where words can trigger scrutiny. Rephrase your opinions in non-keyword triggering ways.

Names are triggers that can easily be found on online searches.  I’m even careful about when I use names in my video because YouTube and Google are listening for keywords so they can better categorize your video. Use descriptions. So for the Tesla guy, I might say- world’s most hated man. Or for the other guy, I might use orange blob

• VPNs are useful, but they don’t erase your digital footprint. VPNs are handy for traveling, especially in countries like China or vietnam, where there access to Google, Facebook, Instagram are blocked in the country.  VPN allows you to use IP addresses from other countries- it masks your current address.  It has nothing to do with erasing your digital footprints on your devices, when you type things in.I recommend NordVPN.

• Anti-theft Phone accessories

So you still want to travel?

• Get trip insurance coverage: Make sure it covers visa revocation. Here’s a tool to find an insurance plan that fits your needs. One traveler got revoked on their way to a cruise booking because they took a “shady” budget route that crossed through different cities and lost $15,000 (the cost of their cruise)
• Book at least three hours between connecting flights. If picked for interrogation it can take an hour at the very least. It won’t matter to CBP if you’re missing your flight.

Won’t Border Security be suspicious if I have a travel burner phone?

After I posted this article, several other news publications and lawyers recommended exactly what is here in this article. Maybe not to this detailed a degree, but it’s the vetted recommendation because innocent people are getting detained.

In full transparency, I linked my previous article to the CBP and DHS, so yes, now, the CBP knows it.  It is not illegal to have a secondary phone– it’s smart, just as having a separate bank account is for travel ! As I mentioned, corporations give their employees phones to keep their personal and professional matters separate.

But I’ve had a perfectly good travel experience with no hint of a U.S. phone search…

Not everyone is pulled into a phone search. Probable suspicion has to trigger it and it can be from your answers to border agent questions, ethnic profiling or if you meet any of the red flags stated above. Maybe you just have a lot of tattoos that fit a protocol for a Venezuelan gang member, you’re coming from a country with political/narcotic tensions or you misinterpret a border question, try to be overly helpful and talk about your housesitting experience or say the wrong thing because you’re nervous.

But if you travel frequently, you’d know that you can get pulled out of line for a more intensive search, swab or line of questioning at TSA, Immigration or at the boarding gate of any airport in the world.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had my media backpack swabbed at airports and I got my first ‘SSSS‘ ( Secondary Screening Search) stamp on my boarding ticket transferring planes with the same airlines in Manila on my way home to Honolulu/U.S. I was pulled out of line so border agents could search my checked luggage, which they pulled from cargo. It’s the “lucky lottery” as we travelers call it.

Will they check all my electronics?

It’s called an Electronics Search (read my post about US airport security changes). So be prepared for anything- laptop, camera, phone, etc..  Leave the laptop at home unless you’re coming for work.

Is it safe traveling the U.S. at this time?

Honestly, this is not a great time for traveling to the U.S. or even connecting through it.

For most countries, even intimidating ones for solo traveling females like India and Pakistan– I advise street smart safety. I personally felt safe but I know that not everyone will have my exact experience.

What we’re doing in the U.S.– freaks me out. American people are fine with tourists and go about their day. It’s this immigration-border situation that feels sticky, tricky and unstable. If you’re a foreign traveler, the worst you can experience at the moment is missing your flight, getting a visa revoked and losing the cost of your entire trip, or being detained.

My advice:: If you can wait out traveling to the U.S. a bit longer to see where this all goes, it’s a good caution.  Now is not the greatest time for your U.S. bucket list.

Travel Safe, Smart and Informed and May the GRRR be with you!