Manual Cell-Phone Border Searches Are “Routine” and Require No Individualized Suspicion

Case: United States v. Jose Belmonte Cardozo (No. 25-4239)
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Date: July 13, 2026
Disposition: Affirmed (Quattlebaum, J.; Diaz, C.J., and Agee, J., joined)

I. Introduction

This appeal sits at the intersection of (1) modern Fourth Amendment privacy concerns surrounding smartphones and (2) the longstanding “border search exception,” under which routine searches at the international border are reasonable without a warrant and—if routine—without individualized suspicion.

Parties and setting. Jose Alejandro Belmonte Cardozo entered the United States from Bolivia through Washington Dulles International Airport, a functional equivalent of the border. A CBP officer conducted a brief on-site inspection of Belmonte Cardozo’s two iPhones after he unlocked them. Within roughly two minutes, the officer located sexually explicit images/videos of prepubescent girls in the photo application’s hidden gallery. Federal charges followed, including counts under 18 U.S.C. § 2251, § 2422(b), and § 2252.

Key issue. The Fourth Circuit addressed a question it had expressly left open in United States v. Kolsuz: whether a manual cell-phone search at the border is “routine” (no individualized suspicion required) or “nonroutine” (individualized suspicion required).

The opinion notes—but does not decide—an additional constitutional question: whether compelling disclosure or entry of a passcode implicates the Fifth Amendment. Belmonte Cardozo disclaimed a Fifth Amendment claim on appeal.

II. Summary of the Opinion

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the denial of suppression, holding that manual cell-phone searches at the border are routine and thus reasonable without individualized suspicion. The court distinguished manual searches from forensic searches, emphasizing that forensic searches are broader, more technologically invasive, can recover deleted/hidden system data, and generate durable copies for later analysis.

The panel also declined to resolve whether CBP actually had individualized suspicion (or whether good faith applied), because suspicion was unnecessary under its new routine-search holding. Still, it signaled that even if suspicion were required and lacking, suppression would likely be unavailable given good-faith reliance on “the established and uniform body of precedent” allowing suspicionless manual border searches of phones (citing United States v. Kolsuz).

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited (and How They Shaped the Decision)

• Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014)
  Role in the opinion: Riley supplies the modern baseline that smartphones contain “immense storage capacity” and reveal “the privacies of life,” so searching digital information is highly intrusive. The Fourth Circuit uses Riley’s balancing framework (privacy intrusion vs. governmental interests) but underscores that Riley addressed the search-incident-to-arrest exception—not the border search exception. Riley is thus treated as informing the privacy side of the scale, not as categorically requiring warrants for border searches.
• Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398 (2006) and Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295 (1999)
  Role: Quoted through Riley to restate Fourth Amendment “reasonableness” as the touchstone and to frame the court’s balancing methodology.
• Birchfield v. North Dakota, 579 U.S. 438 (2016)
  Role: Cited for the general proposition that the warrant requirement has established exceptions, setting the stage for the border search exception.
• Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886)
  Role: Serves two functions: (i) Riley’s “privacies of life” quotation is traced to Boyd, supporting the heightened privacy interest in phones; and (ii) Boyd is also cited for the proposition that border searches have long been treated as reasonable.
• United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606 (1977)
  Role: Provides founding-era historical grounding: the First Congress authorized broad customs searches, supporting the legitimacy and longevity of the border search doctrine.
• United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531 (1985) and United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411 (1981)
  Role: Montoya de Hernandez anchors the routine/nonroutine distinction and explains that nonroutine searches generally require reasonable suspicion; Cortez supplies the definition of reasonable suspicion as a “particularized and objective basis.”
• United States v. Flores-Montano, 541 U.S. 149 (2004)
  Role: Central to the government-interest side of the balance. The opinion draws from Flores-Montano the idea that the government’s interest is “at its zenith” at the border and that the Supreme Court has set a “high bar” for treating property searches as nonroutine.
• Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266 (1973)
  Role: Confirms that the border search doctrine applies at the border’s “functional equivalent,” including international airports like Dulles.
• United States v. Kolsuz, 890 F.3d 133 (4th Cir. 2018)
  Role: The controlling Fourth Circuit precedent distinguishing forensic device searches as nonroutine. The court’s task here is to determine whether that logic extends to manual searches. The panel answers “no,” using Kolsuz as the foil: Kolsuz involved a month-long forensic extraction producing an 896-page report—qualitatively different from a brief, officer-driven manual review.
• United States v. Aigbekaen, 943 F.3d 713 (4th Cir. 2019)
  Role: Used for (i) the “nexus” requirement—nonroutine searches must relate to border-search purposes (security, duties, contraband, unwanted persons/effects); (ii) describing forensic search capabilities; and (iii) reinforcing the “high bar” for deeming property searches nonroutine (via Richardson, J., concurring).
• United States v. Ickes, 393 F.3d 501 (4th Cir. 2005)
  Role: The government argued Ickes compelled the result. The panel rejects that claim: Ickes assumed, rather than decided, routine status and was focused on whether the First Amendment creates an “expressive material” carveout. The court also echoes Kolsuz’s characterization that Ickes involved an “on-site inspection” accessible to any user, not sophisticated forensics.
• Payne v. Taslimi, 998 F.3d 648 (4th Cir. 2021) and United States v. Norman, 935 F.3d 232 (4th Cir. 2019)
  Role: Provide the doctrinal tool to treat Ickes’s “assumption without deciding” as non-binding on the precise question presented here.
• Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018)
  Role: Supports the court’s emphasis on how technology alters surveillance/search power—particularly the difference between ephemeral human observation and durable, extensive technological records—bolstering the manual/forensic divide.
• Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)
  Role: Serves as a limiting principle: even if suspicion is not required, a search can become unconstitutional if its “intensity and scope” becomes intolerable. This is the court’s caution that “routine” status is not an unlimited license.
• Chatrie v. United States, No. 25-112, 609 U.S. ---, 2026 WL 1855568 (June 29, 2026)
  Role: Cited to update the factual premise that smartphone ownership is ubiquitous, reinforcing the real-world stakes of digital privacy.
• Sister-circuit consensus (cited as confirmation and harmonization)
  The Fourth Circuit explicitly joins every circuit “that have addressed this issue”:
  • United States v. Mendez, 103 F.4th 1303 (7th Cir. 2024)
  • United States v. Castillo, 70 F.4th 894 (5th Cir. 2023)
  • Alasaad v. Mayorkas, 988 F.3d 8 (1st Cir. 2021)
  • United States v. Cano, 934 F.3d 1002 (9th Cir. 2019)
  • United States v. Touset, 890 F.3d 1227 (11th Cir. 2018)
  • United States v. Xiang, 67 F.4th 895 (8th Cir. 2023)
  Role: While not necessary to the court’s own reasoning, the citations help position the holding as doctrinally mainstream and reduce the likelihood of intra-circuit uncertainty for border officials and district courts.
• United States v. Nkongho, 107 F.4th 373 (4th Cir. 2024) and United States v. Cotterman, 709 F.3d 952 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc)
  Role: Nkongho is used to rebut the claim that the government’s interest in digital contraband is diminished at the border. Cotterman is used (through Aigbekaen) to describe forensic tools as “powerful,” including their ability to restore deleted material—again strengthening the manual/forensic distinction.

B. Legal Reasoning

The court’s reasoning proceeds in a classic Fourth Amendment structure: (1) identify the applicable exception (border search), (2) decide whether the search is “routine,” and (3) calibrate whether individualized suspicion is required.

1. Border search exception applies at Dulles.
   Using Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, the court treats the international airport as the border’s functional equivalent. The government’s interest in regulating entry of persons/effects and intercepting contraband is “at its zenith” (United States v. Flores-Montano).
2. “Routine” vs “nonroutine” is the key doctrinal lever.
   Under United States v. Kolsuz, routine searches need no individualized suspicion; nonroutine searches require it. The opinion emphasizes that the Supreme Court has been reluctant to label property searches nonroutine, implying a demanding threshold before routine status is lost.
3. Manual searches are materially less intrusive than forensic searches.
   The panel identifies four practical-constitutional differences:
   • Human-limited review: an officer “scrolls” and views what a user can access; forensics uses external tools.
   • Narrower scope as a function of time and manpower: manual searches are self-limiting; forensics is comprehensive (illustrated by the two-minute search here versus the month-long extraction in Kolsuz).
   • Data reach: forensics can recover deleted files, cached fragments, metadata, logs, and histories beyond user-facing content.
   • Persistence/copying: forensics may create a portable duplicate that can be searched later; manual searching is constrained by memory/notes (supported by the logic of Carpenter v. United States).
   These differences, in the court’s view, reduce the privacy intrusion enough that the balance falls back within the “routine” side of the border-search doctrine.
4. Rejecting the “digital contraband can cross electronically” argument.
   The court reasons that the ability of contraband to move via the internet does not diminish the sovereign interest in stopping contraband carried physically on devices at the border, citing United States v. Nkongho and United States v. Cano.
5. Limiting principle preserved.
   By invoking Terry v. Ohio, the court leaves open that an otherwise permissible manual search could become unconstitutional due to excessive “intensity and scope,” and it hints that prolonged deprivation of a phone might trigger additional Fourth Amendment scrutiny.

C. Impact

1) Doctrinal clarity in the Fourth Circuit. The opinion closes the gap left by United States v. Kolsuz: in this circuit, “manual” and “forensic” searches are categorically treated differently for routine/nonroutine purposes. District courts now have a clear first-order sorting rule.

2) Operational consequences at ports of entry. CBP and partner agencies can conduct brief, on-site manual reviews of phones without articulating individualized suspicion, reducing litigation over officer “hunches” in cases where contraband is found quickly through user-facing navigation (as here).

3) Litigation will likely shift to line-drawing questions. With suspicion generally off the table for manual searches, future disputes will likely focus on:

• What counts as “manual” (e.g., use of built-in device search features, image recognition, or “hidden” folders),
• When a manual search becomes excessively intensive (time, repeated sessions, device retention),
• Compulsion issues not reached here (passcodes/biometrics under the Fifth Amendment), and
• Scope constraints suggested by the court’s Terry-based caution.

4) Harmonization with other circuits. By aligning with the cited consensus (e.g., United States v. Cano, Alasaad v. Mayorkas, United States v. Castillo, United States v. Mendez), the Fourth Circuit reduces the risk of forum-dependent standards for travelers at different borders—an important feature for a national-security and customs regime.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Border search exception: A long-recognized rule that the government may search people and items entering (or sometimes leaving) the country without a warrant because the sovereign interest in controlling entry is exceptionally strong.
• Routine vs nonroutine border searches: “Routine” searches are the ordinary inspections associated with border entry and require no individualized suspicion. “Nonroutine” searches are unusually intrusive (often implicating dignity/privacy in especially significant ways) and generally require reasonable suspicion.
• Manual search (in this context): An officer navigates the device as a normal user would—opening apps, scrolling, and viewing accessible content—without specialized extraction tools.
• Forensic search: A technologically enhanced examination using external hardware/software to copy and analyze device contents, potentially recovering deleted data and producing a comprehensive report that can be reviewed later.
• Individualized suspicion / reasonable suspicion: Specific, articulable facts that objectively point to wrongdoing by the particular person (more than a hunch, less than probable cause).
• Good-faith exception: Even if a search is later found unlawful, evidence may not be suppressed if officers reasonably relied on existing precedent authorizing their conduct (discussed here through United States v. Kolsuz).

V. Conclusion

United States v. Jose Belmonte Cardozo establishes a clear Fourth Circuit rule: manual cell-phone searches at the border are “routine” and require no individualized suspicion. The court reaches this result by balancing strong sovereign border interests against smartphone privacy concerns and by sharply distinguishing manual review from forensic extraction—treating the latter as uniquely comprehensive, durable, and technologically invasive. The decision both aligns the Fourth Circuit with sister-circuit consensus and reorients future litigation toward defining the boundaries of “manual” methods and the point at which a search’s duration or scope becomes constitutionally intolerable.