A video from an immigration lawyer offering advice on what rights U.S. citizens and visa holders have if stopped by customs at airports is going viral on TikTok, racking up more than 8 million views.
The post from New York-based immigration lawyer Brad Bernstein comes on the heels of accounts from TikTok users who say they are American citizens but were detained for hours and had their phones or luggage searched when entering the country. The videos — and the details Twitch streamer Hasan Piker shared about being stopped and questioned at Chicago O’Hare International Airport — have many wondering what to do and what rights they have if they are detained by U.S. customs officials.
Bernstein said one of the biggest questions he hears is whether all constitutional rights are protected during CBP screenings.
“The Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution doesn’t apply until you’ve entered the United States of America,” Bernstein said. “And although you’re physically in the United States at an airport, you’re not considered to have entered the United States under immigration law until you pass through immigration and customs.”
NBC News legal analyst Danny Cevallos explained that the Supreme Court has held “that routine searches at the border do not require a warrant, probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion, due to the government’s inherent sovereign interest in protecting its territorial integrity.”
Bernstein said that individual protections depend heavily on a traveler’s citizenship status, and that those on visas or green card holders have less protection.
“A U.S. citizen has to be allowed back into the United States. The government cannot take your U.S. passport away, they cannot take your citizenship away,” Bernstein said. But he advised caution.
“There is a much lower standard of constitutional authority at the airport, versus just walking around locally on our streets, where the Fourth Amendment of illegal search and seizure would apply,” he said.
Statistically, advanced searches are rare, but it’s important to plan ahead, Bernstein said.
Travelers who want to protect their privacy going through CBP should only take electronics that are absolutely necessary when traveling, log out of cloud-based services and consider taking a secondary phone when going abroad, he advised.
Above all, even though these searches can be intimidating, it’s best to stay calm and tell the truth. “The more you say no, the more questions you’re going to have. And the longer your stay at the airport is going to be,” Bernstein said.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, U.S. citizens don’t need to carry proof of citizenship with them in the country.
“If you have valid immigration documents and are over the age of 18, the law does require you to carry those documents on you. If you are asked by an immigration agent to produce them, it is advisable to show the documents to the agent or you risk being arrested,” the ACLU website reads.
TikTok creator Savanna, who says she is an American citizen born in the U.S., said she was stopped and questioned by CBP for more than two hours at an airport in Miami. Her video about the encounter has received more than 2 million views on TikTok. In it, she describes customs officials scrolling through her socials and repeatedly questioning her about how much money she made daily on TikTok.
“I’ve been traveling out of the country and I’ve never had this problem,” she told NBC News. “But the one thing that did change between February and now, or February and April, was that I created ‘Trump for the Dump.’”
Savanna said the line is a satirical clothing brand she created with the intention of donating the profits to humanitarian causes.
The Department of Homeland Security reposted Savanna’s video on X and said that she was not stopped because of political reasons.
“Lawful travellers have nothing to fear from these measures, which are designed to protect our nation’s security,” DHS said in a statement, adding “allegations that political beliefs trigger inspections or removals are baseless and irresponsible.”
DHS said its data shows that overall border searches have increased since last year but advanced screenings have slightly declined.
Cevallos pointed to a recent federal case that determined “basic” electronic device searches at the border are constitutional. “This has been criticized as an ‘interpretation of the Fourth Amendment that threatens individuals’ privacy interests at the border,’” Cevallos said.
Piker, the streamer and American political pundit known on Twitch as HasanAbi, said he believes he was stopped by CBP on his return trip from France on May 11 because of his political views, a reasoning that DHS also disputes.
“I was invited to the back room to be questioned on my opinions on a multitude of different things from Donald Trump to Israel, Palestine,” he told NBC News.
Piker said he wasn’t surprised when he was asked to step aside by agents.
“I knew that it was most likely going to happen because I’d heard so many reports of this happening to immigration attorneys and even TikTokers and stuff that have said negative things about Donald Trump,” he said.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a post on X that Piker was “Lying for ‘likes.’”
“I thought it was really funny cause they admitted that it happened,” Piker said in response to McLaughlin’s post. “The parts that they omitted that I think is very nefarious is that like, is this an admission that asking people about their loyalty to the current administration or their opinion on Israel-Palestine is a part of a routine investigation? Because there’s nothing routine about that at all. It’s not pertinent to my entry into the country as an American citizen.”
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