Imam v. Mullin

On October 16, 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized four personal devices, two iPhones and two laptops, from psychiatric nurse practitioner Muhammad Numaan Imam and his wife, software engineer Khadijah Mansoor, as the couple returned to Washington Dulles International Airport with their one-year-old child. Imam declined to unlock his phone because it held confidential patient information. Officers allegedly told him the Fourth Amendment did not apply at the border, that he had no right to a lawyer and that HIPAA did not stop them, then threatened to take both laptops, including his wife’s, unless he complied. CBP took all four devices without a warrant or any stated individualized suspicion, and the next day Imam’s Global Entry membership was revoked.

ADC went to federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia, arguing that the seizure and retention of the devices violate the Fourth Amendment and Fourth Circuit precedent, which requires individualized suspicion for forensic searches of devices at the border, and that the threats and the Global Entry revocation point to retaliation. ADC is pressing for a full accounting of what CBP did with the devices, the return and destruction of any data it copied, and protection against further searches. The case tests whether border agents can open a medical provider’s devices, and the confidential records of patients on them, without a warrant or cause.