VEHICLE SEARCHES AT U.S. LAND PORTS
Yes. CBP’s border-search authority extends to vehicles entering or leaving the United States. At an international port of entry, CBP can inspect a vehicle, its occupants, baggage and property to enforce customs, immigration and other federal laws administered at the border.
19 U.S.C. §1581 authorizes customs officers to examine, inspect and search a vehicle and every part of it, together with persons, trunks, packages or cargo on board, when exercising the statute’s customs-enforcement authority.
At the actual international border, a routine vehicle inspection operates under the border-search rules rather than the ordinary rules governing a police search far inside the United States.
CBP’s current border-search guidance states that its border authority permits inspection, examination and search of vehicles, persons, baggage and merchandise.
Land-port inspections can involve immigration questions, customs declarations, agriculture restrictions, vehicle ownership, contraband screening or other border-enforcement functions.
The fact that a vehicle is referred to secondary inspection or physically searched does not by itself establish that the occupants are under arrest or criminal investigation.
CBP vehicle-search authority can extend to trunks, packages, luggage and cargo found in the vehicle.
A vehicle search can reveal phones, laptops and other electronic devices, but CBP applies separate policy standards to border searches of digital information.
See CBP Search of Phones and Electronic Devices at the Border.
The rules at an actual port of entry are not identical to the rules governing a Border Patrol checkpoint located inside the United States.
A formal seizure is different from a temporary inspection. If CBP takes custody of the vehicle for forfeiture processing, separate notice and FP&F procedures apply.
Yes. Federal customs authority permits inspection of the vehicle and property or cargo carried in it during a border search.
Routine searches conducted at the international border are governed by the border-search doctrine and different legal rules from ordinary inland police searches.
No. A search examines the vehicle. A seizure places property into government custody under separate enforcement and forfeiture procedures.
The significance of the search depends on what CBP found, what statements were made and what enforcement action followed.