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US Border Agents Are Reportedly Searching Travellers’ Phones at Unprecedented Rates

Your phone, please.

Though it's long been legal for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents to search through travelers' and immigrants' phones, those searches have increased exponentially already this year — and it's only March.

In February alone, agents searched more than 5,000 devices — more than in the entire year of 2015 — according to Department of Homeland Security data obtained by NBC News. Of the 25 (U.S.-born and otherwise) travelers NBC News talked to about having their phones confiscated under questioning last month, 23 were Muslim, suggesting a causal link to Donald Trump's travel ban from Muslim-majority countries, which remains under legal siege.

Confiscating and examining the content of digital devices isn't a new customs practice under Trump. There have been plenty of cases in recent years involving foreign journalistsNASA scientists, and others having their phones taken by the CBP for surveillance, though the constitutionality is questionable. If the February pace continues, DHS will surpass all of 2016's roughly 25,000 confiscations by sometime around mid-year.

See the rest of this article on VICE NEWS.