The Fourth Amendment protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” This protection is not limited to only a physical intrusion on property. It also protects a person’s “reasonable expectation of privacy.” Warrants are therefore necessary in almost all instances for a valid search to occur, unless an exception applies. The Border Search Doctrine, however, is one of the few exceptions to this general rule.
The Border Search Doctrine predates the Fourth Amendment and derives its powers from Congress’s inherent authority to regulate commerce and enforce immigration laws. No warrant is necessary at the border for most searches and seizures because of the government’s inherent power to control who or what comes within a nation’s borders. This is an intrinsic attribute of national sovereignty. The Fourth Amendment’s balance of interests thus leans heavily in favor of the government at the border. Even though courts favor government interests at the border, searches and seizures must remain “reasonable” dependent on the facts and circumstances in question.
What about GPS Searches and Tracking that is initiated at the border with a continuous surveillance within the United States?
Much of the information discussed in these videos, came from Kimberly Shi, GPS Tracking at the Border: A Mistaken Expectation or a Chilling Reality, 27 Wash. & Lee J. Civ. Rts. & Soc. Just. 161 (2020).
Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol27/iss1/6
Anton Vialtsin, Esq.
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