We don't know the exact circumstances, but CBP stands for Customs and Border Protection.

I've heard of Customs agents demanding people let them search phones without a warrant and without probable cause, and so foreigners can be refused entry. We probably all heard the story of it happening for a person who had a meme of JD Vance on his phone.

But the article says that this guy is based out of Atlanta, so I'm guessing he's a US citizen. I'm not sure they can refuse entry to a US citizen based on this.

Either way, you should never give permission to anybody to search your phone. Maybe you've broken a law that you didn't know was a law, and you've just handed the evidence over to the police. Or maybe you have evidence that can convict somebody else who didn't know they broke a law.

I don't know what this means for people crossing the US border. Now is a bad time to enter the United States.

Legally, they cannot refuse entry to a US Citizen. Legally.

But just because someone is based in the US doesn't mean they're a citizen. And they don't need any justification to search someone, because airports and land within 100 miles of a border is a "constitution-free zone" (but not 100 miles from an airport, contrary to popular belief).

Lmao so now we're saying all of Southern California south of Newport Beach (85 mi from Tijuana) is a place where the constitution does not apply? New York west of Rochester? (80 mi from Niagara) Pretty much all of Alaska's tail thingy next to Canada?

Details are weird here. The wiping occurred in Jan 2025. I found the indictment which was filed with the court on Nov 13th 2025 linked here

We have almost no details of what happened in Jan 2025 except "Customs and Border Patrol Tactical Terrorism Response Team" was doing something with Tunick in January and Tunick "used a code" to wipe the phone. Then suddenly in November 2025 the US Government filed to have him arrested for that event.

I'm not a legal scholar, but none of these details or timeline makes sense to me. Anyone else have any clue?

It's not complicated, it's Border Patrol doing their MAGA duty. The only thing we know about this case is what MAGA tells us, so it's almost all certainly a lie. Of course the details and timeline don't make sense, they are probably entirely fabricated.

I don't disagree, but usually they at least try to present a semi-defensible argument. So far the only thing they elude to is "before or during a time when we were going to perform a search he wiped his own phone". If its "before" a search then what is even the basis for that being illegal for him to wipe is own property?

Yeah, but those tries are half-hearted, at best. The excuses will start falling by the wayside until the response is: "Mind yer own fucking business, but since you're so curious, who the fuck are YOU? Get over here!"

I don't disagree, but usually they at least try to present a semi-defensible argument. So far the only thing they elude to is "before or during a time when we were going to perform a search he wiped his own phone". If its "before" a search then what is even the basis for that being illegal for him to wipe is own property?

I imagine they’re trying to charge him with destruction of evidence. I don’t know how that should go if this were actually a legal proceeding but would certainly hope it would require reasonable suspicion of a specific crime and a search warrant.