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The week's question
In December 2024, in the thread "Re: BRK: Why Not XOM?", BreckHutHigh asked the members: "What about the long road trips with kids?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Author: albaby1 ✶❂ SILVER
SHREWD   😊 😞
Number: of 84361 
Subject: Re: Five years for wiping your own phone
Date: 07/31/26 8:46 AM
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But a search, in order to secure a warrant, has to have “probable cause”. That’s the basis of the Fourth Amendment. Did these agents have any “probable cause”? (Did they even have a warrant? I suppose not, but then may that’s not required at the border? Where does it say that?)

As noted above, they don't need a warrant or probable cause. All persons and property crossing the border are subject to search without any requirement.

As for where it says that, tons of Supreme Court decisions. Like U.S. v. Montoya de Hernandez:

[T]he Fourth Amendment's balance of reasonableness is qualitatively different at the international border than in the interior. Routine searches of the persons and effects of entrants are not subject to any requirement of reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or warrant,1 and first-class mail may be opened without a warrant on less than probable cause, Ramsey, supra. Automotive travelers may be stopped at fixed checkpoints near the border without individualized suspicion even if the stop is based largely on ethnicity, United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 562-563, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 3085, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976), and boats on inland waters with ready access to the sea may be hailed and boarded with no suspicion whatever. United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, supra.

law.cornell.edu: UNITED STATES, Petitioner v. Rosa Elvira MONTOYA DE HERNANDEZ. | Supreme Court | US Law

The border search exception is well established in U.S. case law.
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