Judge finds 2024 phone searches of Palestinian American unconstitutional

A federal judge has ruled the U.S. government violated the constitutional rights of Palestinian American Osama Abu Irshaid when customs agents seized and searched his cell phone on two occasions at a U.S. international airport in 2024.

Here are details:

• In the ruling filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff wrote that Irshaid’s phone searches in 2024 violated his Fourth Amendment rights of protection from unreasonable government searches and seizures.

• Irshaid is the executive director of an organization named American Muslims for Palestine and a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent.

• The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which had sued on Irshaid’s behalf two years ago, welcomed the ruling on Thursday.

• CAIR had alleged in the lawsuit that the federal government had placed the Palestinian American on a watch list that the Muslim advocacy group called discriminatory and racist.

• CAIR said that twice in 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seized and conducted “advanced” searches of Irshaid’s cell phone when he returned to the U.S. from abroad.

• The government said at the time it did not add people to any such list based on race, religion and free speech activity.

• The Department of Homeland Security, of which CBP is a part, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

• Rights advocates have in recent years raised concerns about scrutiny against Americans of Middle Eastern descent and Arab and Palestinian backgrounds over their political views since the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza following an October 2023 Hamas attack.