Returning from aid trip to Cuba, Americans have phones seized at US airport | The VergeSkip to main contentThe homepageThe VergeThe Verge logo.The VergeThe Verge logo.TechReviewsScienceEntertainmentAIPolicyHamburger Navigation ButtonThe homepageThe VergeThe Verge logo.Hamburger Navigation ButtonNavigation DrawerThe VergeThe Verge logo.Login / Sign UpcloseCloseSearchTechExpandAmazonAppleFacebookGoogleMicrosoftSamsungBusinessSee all techReviewsExpandSmart Home ReviewsPhone ReviewsTablet ReviewsHeadphone ReviewsSee all reviewsScienceExpandSpaceEnergyEnvironmentHealthSee all scienceEntertainmentExpandTV ShowsMoviesAudioSee all entertainmentAIExpandOpenAIAnthropicSee all AIPolicyExpandAntitrustPoliticsLawSecuritySee all policyGadgetsExpandLaptopsPhonesTVsHeadphonesSpeakersWearablesSee all gadgetsVerge ShoppingExpandBuying GuidesDealsGift GuidesSee all shoppingGamingExpandXboxPlayStationNintendoSee all gamingStreamingExpandDisneyHBONetflixYouTubeCreatorsSee all streamingTransportationExpandElectric CarsAutonomous CarsRide-sharingScootersSee all transportationFeaturesVerge VideoExpandTikTokYouTubeInstagramPodcastsExpandDecoderThe VergecastVersion HistoryNewslettersArchivesStoreVerge Product UpdatesSubscribeFacebookThreadsInstagramYoutubeRSSThe VergeThe Verge logo.Returning from a humanitarian aid trip to Cuba, Americans have phones seized at US airportComments DrawerCommentsLoading commentsGetting the conversation ready...PolicyClosePolicyPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All PolicyReportCloseReportPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All ReportTechCloseTechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TechReturning from a humanitarian aid trip to Cuba, Americans have phones seized at US airportCBP agents at Miami International Airport briefly detained 20 activists, 18 of whom had their phones taken.by Gaby Del ValleCloseGaby Del VallePolicy ReporterPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Gaby Del ValleMar 27, 2026, 2:30 PM UTCLinkShareGift Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesPolicyClosePolicyPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All PolicyReportCloseReportPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All ReportTechCloseTechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TechReturning from a humanitarian aid trip to Cuba, Americans have phones seized at US airportCBP agents at Miami International Airport briefly detained 20 activists, 18 of whom had their phones taken.by Gaby Del ValleCloseGaby Del VallePolicy ReporterPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Gaby Del ValleMar 27, 2026, 2:30 PM UTCLinkShareGiftGaby Del ValleCloseGaby Del VallePosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Gaby Del Valle is a policy reporter at The Verge covering surveillance, the Department of Homeland Security, and the tech-right.Members of a convoy that delivered humanitarian aid to Cuba were detained and interrogated by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) upon returning to the United States on a charter flight from Havana. Of the 20 US citizens who were pulled for secondary inspection at Miami International Airport on Wednesday morning, 18 had their phones and other devices seized by CBP, with little information given on whether and when they’ll get them back.The group was part of a larger coalition of activists who traveled in waves to Cuba as part of the Nuestra América Convoy, named after an essay by nineteenth-century Cuban intellectual José Martí criticizing US dominance of the Americas. The convoy included 650 delegates from 33 countries, and delivered an estimated 20 tons of aid to the island nation. Some members of the convoy traveled to Cuba by sea on a 75-foot-long fishing boat that departed from Mexico loaded with rice, beans, canned food, baby formula, bicycles, and solar panels to distribute to Cuban organizations on the ground. Others chartered flights, many of which left from and returned to Miami. One delegation, led by the activist group CODEPINK, said it carried 6,300 pounds of medicine and other medical supplies valued at $433,000. The 20 people who were detained on Monday all traveled together as part of the CODEPINK delegation.These supplies were intended to alleviate the effects of the ongoing US blockade on oil exports to Cuba. The Trump administration has been blocking Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba since the January capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, though Reuters reports that the State Department has allowed a limited number of fuel exports to Cuba’s private sector. The shortage has plunged the already struggling nation into crisis: the island has been plagued by rolling blackouts. Food is rotting in refrigerators, trash is piling up on the streets because there isn’t enough fuel to collect it, and Cubans have been forced to live in the dark while a few businesses run on US-provided oil. Cuba’s universal healthcare system has been hit especially hard: the New York Times reports that hospital patients are dying due to a lack of resources, and doctors tell the paper that these deaths would otherwise be preventable if not for the fuel shortage.The convoy included a number of high-profile activists, including leftist streamer Hasan Piker and Chris Smalls, the Amazon worker who helped organize a strike at a New York City facility in 2020. Smalls was among those who had their devices seized.“There was a charter flight that went out yesterday that went by pretty seamlessly,” Olivia DiNucci, an organizer at the left-leaning pacifist organization CODEPINK, told The Verge on Wednesday. DiNucci was one of the 20 members of the convoy who was pulled aside for secondary screening. “There were a couple people who were detained, but it was pretty quick and — in quotes — ‘normal’ racial profiling that happened. But right when we got off the plane, 20 of us got taken in.”DiNucci said her name was called before she walked up to the customs desk. All 20 people were pulled into secondary inspection and then questioned individually. Some of the questions were standard: DiNucci said she was asked what she was doing in Cuba, how long she was there, where she was staying, who she was with, what she does for work, where she lives, and for her phone number. But some members of the group who have relatives in Venezuela, Mexico, and Cuba were asked about their families, according to DiNucci.“They asked other people about their family in Cuba, their work that they did in Venezuela,” DiNucci said. “One agent was like, ‘Cubans want Marco Rubio to be in power,’” and was “bashing the fact that we brought aid that the government was just going to take.”CBP did not respond to The Verge’s request for comment.“I’ve always been warned against Cuba being a heavy surveillance state, but I can’t think of one bigger than the United States.”DiNucci said the customs agents gave the group two options: they could unlock and hand over their phones for inspection, or their devices would be seized. DiNucci said she and one other person voluntarily gave over their phones. The other 18 people had their devices confiscated. Agents also looked through people’s notebooks and journals, and photographed the contents. DiNucci’s phone was in airplane mode, and she thinks agents looked through her photos. “I had all my messaging apps, all my emails, everything deleted” before going through customs, she said. At one point, the phone was taken out of her sight; she doesn’t know what the agents did with it then.Suzanne Adely, president of the National Lawyers Guild, told The Verge that these types of phone searches aren’t new, and are often used against activists. The guild is giving the members of the convoy information about their rights and is working to help get their phones back.“We know that the US, above all, does this to intimidate, but I am confident these activists will not be intimidated and will continue to stand in solidarity with Cuba as they endure this inhumane US blockade,” Adely said. “We intend to pressure the government to return their phones immediately, and there is a way to demand redress for the impact of what we consider to be an unlawful search and seizure.”A Cuban-American member of the convoy, who asked that her name be withheld for professional reasons, said she traveled with a burner phone. “I felt anxious about it,” she said. “You hear things about getting searched, so I didn’t want to chance it.”She traveled through Miami and returned to the US last week without incident. She suspects she made it through easily because she has Global Entry, a trusted traveler program run by CBP. Other members of her group were pulled aside, and some had their devices searched, she said.Growing up in a Cuban-American family, she said, she was often warned about repression in Cuba. “I’ve always been warned against Cuba being a heavy surveillance state,” she said, “but I can’t think of one bigger than the United States.”RelatedIs it safe to travel with your phone right now?The airport panopticon is getting people deported and detainedThe Trump administration has threatened to impose tariffs on any country that ships fuel to Cuba. Earlier this week, a Russian tanker carrying an estimated 730,000 barrels of crude oil traveled through the English Channel, escorted by a Russian warship. At an international conference in February, several Caribbean countries pledged to send humanitarian aid to Cuba and called for a deescalation of tensions between the US and the island nation.The Cuban-American member of the convoy who spoke to The Verge said its purpose was to help civilians who are struggling as a result of the blockade. “I think that ultimately, people went because they wanted to help people,” she said. “And I think at the end of the day, that was the mission.”Warrantless searches of people’s phones typically violate the Fourth Amendment, with one glaring exception: searches conducted at ports of entry, including airports. The Supreme Court held in 2014 that these searches “are reasonable simply because they occur at the border.”CBP conducts two types of device searches: “basic” inspections like the one that happened to DiNucci, where agents can look at anything on a person’s phone that is available offline, and more advanced forensic inspections. Warrantless forensic searches are allowed at some ports of entry and prohibited in others, thanks to a patchwork of federal rulings with different outcomes.Travelers can refuse to have their devices searched, but for people who aren’t US citizens, this could mean being denied entry into the country. Citizens who refuse searches may have their devices taken, which is what happened to 18 members of the convoy who traveled through Miami on Wednesday.CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin, a member of the convoy who returned to the US via Miami on March 23rd, said she and most others in her group entered without incident. “I was asked just a couple of questions, and that was it, and that was the case for most of the people,” she said. Five people in her group were pulled aside for secondary screening, but they were only held for about half an hour.But Benjamin said she’s had trouble getting the word out about how dire conditions in Cuba have become.Benjamin said authorities in Miami hampered her group’s ability to hold a press conference ahead of the trip; officials denied their permit. The US policy toward Cuba appears to follow the logic that “to liberate the Cuban people, we must inflict enough pain that they will rise up,” she said. “It’s such an ideological policy that doesn’t talk about the people and the real needs of people.”Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Gaby Del ValleCloseGaby Del VallePolicy ReporterPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Gaby Del VallePolicyClosePolicyPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All PolicyPrivacyClosePrivacyPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All PrivacyReportCloseReportPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All ReportTechCloseTechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TechMost PopularMost PopularMeta gets ready to launch two new Ray-Ban AI glassesThe United States router ban, explainedNetflix is raising prices againSony is raising PS5 prices by $100 in AprilApple’s Mac Pro is dead, apparently for good this timeThe Verge DailyA free daily digest of the news that matters most.Email (required)Sign UpBy submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice. 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The recent incident at Miami International Airport, involving a humanitarian aid convoy returning from Cuba, has sparked significant controversy and raised concerns regarding US customs procedures and surveillance practices. Twenty activists, primarily associated with the CODEPINK group, were detained and subjected to secondary inspection following a charter flight from Havana. Of these, eighteen individuals had their phones and other devices seized by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, with limited transparency provided regarding the potential return of their possessions. The convoy itself was part of the “Nuestra América Convoy,” a coalition of activists delivering supplies to Cuba, including rice, beans, bicycles, and solar panels, intended to alleviate the impact of the ongoing US blockade on the island nation.

The actions of CBP agents, led by activist Hasan Piker and Chris Smalls, centered around questioning the travelers regarding their connections to Venezuela and Cuba, and expressing criticisms of the humanitarian aid’s intended purpose. Agents reportedly scrutinized travelers’ notebooks and photographed the contents, reflecting what some perceived as intrusive and unwarranted scrutiny. The detention and seizure of devices prompted immediate reactions, with legal experts highlighting potential Fourth Amendment violations related to warrantless searches, particularly at ports of entry where such searches are permitted under specific circumstances. Suzanne Adely, President of the National Lawyers Guild, emphasized the tactic’s frequent use in intimidating activists and reiterated the guild’s commitment to advocating for the return of the seized devices and challenging the legality of the search.

Several logistical aspects of the event deserve particular attention. The group’s arrival coincided with ongoing tensions surrounding US policy toward Cuba and the Venezuelan oil embargo. The seizure of the devices also underscored concerns about the impact of the US blockade on Cuba’s already struggling economy and healthcare system, which have been severely hampered by fuel shortages. Moreover, the incident reflects a broader pattern of surveillance and scrutiny directed towards activists and organizations involved in humanitarian efforts supporting Cuba. The diverse range of travelers including those with connections to Venezuela and Cuba, along with the collection of personal information, suggests a potentially expanded scope of inquiry, raising questions about the justification for the intensified investigation.

The situation highlights existing ambiguities and discrepancies in CBP’s enforcement policies regarding device searches at ports of entry, particularly concerning warrant requirements. While the Supreme Court has established guidelines for reasonable searches at borders, the application of these rules can vary, leading to inconsistent practices. The case underscores the need for greater clarity and accountability within CBP’s procedures and has prompted calls for a review of its surveillance techniques. The involvement of prominent figures like Hasan Piker and Chris Smalls further amplified the public attention surrounding the event, contributing to heightened awareness about the perceived overreach of US authorities in monitoring activities associated with humanitarian support for Cuba. Ultimately, the seizure of the activists’ devices represents a significant challenge to civil liberties and underscores the complex intersection of foreign policy, border security, and human rights.