They'll do the same thing, and someone will say "But what about Alasaad v. McAleenan?" and in the small windowless holding room the agent will say "What about it? You want to leave, unlock your phone."
The US was founded on habeas corpus, and it doesn't matter what laws have been written since, or what national threats have been used as an excuse to undermine our inalienable rights. Your duty is to the future people of the US so that their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness aren't infringed.
My feeling is that this house of cards of government officials skirting the law and pleading ignorance is going to come crashing down in the near future. They know that they are breaking the law. They're just assuming that you will be afraid and let them.
I had hoped that we were past all this and the 21st century would to be free of injustice, but unfortunately we're all going to have to fight just like our ancestors did. But I think that better times really are just around the corner, as long as we stay informed and unified.
Related: congresswoman Nanette Barragan questions Kirstjen Nielsen on asylum seekers being turned away at US border crossings:
Asylum seekers are granted refugee status by the United Nations if they meet two broad requirements. The US accepts a limited number each year (notably more than any other country since WW2, however).
I'm not a lawyer, but reading through this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylum_in_the_United_States
Something stood out:
An applicant initially presents his claim to an asylum officer, who may either grant asylum or refer the application to an Immigration Judge.
So I think that the "Nanette Barragan questions Kirstjen Nielsen" video I linked shows that the border crossing agent committed a crime when she turned away people seeking asylum. She should have either: a) granted their asylum or b) admitted them to go before an immigration judge.
From there, the border crossing agent should be tried in court for her actions. In which case, she can either say that she is guilty and take the penalty, or that she was following orders and then the next person up in rank should go through the process until it reaches Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. In which case, she can accept responsibility, or claim that she was following orders from the president.
It looks like Kirstjen Nielsen resigned on April 10, 2019, a month after the March 2 video:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kirstjen-nielsen-resigning-dhs-...
We're seeing this a lot lately, where high-ranking officials are skirting the law, then resigning to shield the president. That's not how it should work in America.
I say all of this because I imagine if I was a border crossing agent, and I denied asylum to someone outright, then found out later they died because of my actions, I'd likely get PTSD and never recover. At the very least, I don't know how I'd be able to sleep at night.
Which is why I think I'm right as far as the spirit of the law, even if the letter of the law doesn't match up with what I'm saying.
This itself is actually the fallacy. Take a look at this:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/01/540903038...
> Watson was correct all along: He was a U.S. citizen. After he was released, he filed a complaint. Last year, a district judge in New York awarded him $82,500 in damages, citing "regrettable failures of the government."
> On Monday, an appeals court ruled that Watson, now 32, is not eligible for any of that money — because while his case is "disturbing," the statute of limitations actually expired while he was still in ICE custody without a lawyer.
"Flessner, Watson's lawyer, says the ruling "turns false imprisonment statute of limitation claims kind of on their head."
It means a person in custody for an extended period of time would have to file a false-imprisonment claim while detained, "before it's been determined that they've been falsely imprisoned," he said. "I mean, this is not only applicable to immigration cases ... there's lots of citizens that are falsely or wrongly imprisoned."
A few thoughts comes to mind:
* Corrupt public officials are hacking our legal system through thin cracks like differences between citizen and non-citizen rights and the statute of limitations to commit injustice.
* This case needs to be appealed and go all the way to the Supreme Court, because it's pretty self-evidently an infringement of Davino Watson's rights.
* The Supreme Court as it stands now would likely make an unjust decision in that case, because it has been packed with judges that lean more towards libertarianism/corporatism than justice. Mitch McConnell blocked Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland, which opened the door to Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/05/mitch-mcconnell-supr...
99.9% of the time, the most negative outcome of this kind of interaction will be losing my stuff, being arrested and held for anywhere up to 24 hours, or being denied entry. For most people, these are a compelling enough reasons to comply with a power-tripping border agent. Despite this ruling, your recourse in such a situation will remain quite limited.
Also, it's not exactly hard for a lawyer to argue that you were coerced into consenting to a search in your hypothetical example. Since the people crossing the border are mostly non-criminals if CPB does use those tactics routinely it will not take long at all for a suitably politically sympathetic victim to come along and precedent to be established saying that is also not ok.
I highly doubt they are getting a lot of convictions from illegal searches of devices. The overwhelming majority of convictions they get are from people physically smuggling drugs and weapons and apples across borders. They don't need to unlock your phone to catch you with any of these things. They already have the right to tear apart your car if they think you have drugs hidden in it.
It's a power play, not an actually useful LE tool. The overwhelming majority of the things that you may have on your phone that are going to get you in trouble with border control are not going to put you in jail. What they will do, is deny you entry, and possibly ban you for 5-10 years.
Since entry for non-citzens is a courtesy, you have zero redress in that case. You're never going to get your day in court, since you're not charged with a crime, and you will not be able to contest that the search was illegal.
The only way this ruling would result in any change, is if CBP voluntarily follows it.
They can still do parallel construction, and can still cause you harm just by detaining you, and they can use your behavior in response to abuse as probable cause to justify further abuse.
If you were illegally searched, then law enforcement subsequently does parallel construction, defense counsel can easily and persuasively argue that the subsequent evidence is "fruit of the poisoned tree" and would not have occurred without the illegal search. The judge can then throw out all evidence from the parallel construction.
The only way parallel construction works is if defense counsel and the judge don't know that the illegal search ever happened at all - which is very unlikely in the case of an illegal border search.
So yes they can just send you back, it is in their capabilities and there's nothing the foreigner can do to counter that decision.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States#Sub...
You can win a Supreme Court case about a search being illegal, and still have that evidence be used to nail you on the original charge.