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By Billal Rahman
Immigration Reporter
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A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from searching data copied from an immigration lawyer’s cellphone, finding that he is likely to succeed on his claim that the government seized the device in retaliation for his First Amendment-protected speech.
U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs, an Obama apointee, granted attorney Andrew Lattarulo a preliminary injunction Thursday, finding that evidence currently before the court suggested he “would not have been searched except for his protected speech.”
The ruling prevents federal authorities from accessing data copied from Lattarulo’s phone after Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and an officer with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) stopped him as he returned to Boston from Aruba in September. HSI is the investigative arm within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
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Lattarulo, a part owner of the law firm Georges Cote LLP, represents clients in immigration proceedings and runs a popular Instagram account where he posts “know-your-rights” information about U.S. immigration matters. His videos regularly receive hundreds of thousands of views, according to the ruling.
Newsweek has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, CBP and Lattarulo's legal team for comment, outside of normal working hours.
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The judge said Lattarulo’s public statements opposing the government’s immigration policies and his representation of people in immigration proceedings were protected by the First Amendment.
The government denied targeting Lattarulo because of his speech. It argued that the seizure was connected to an HSI inquiry into whether his law firm employed people who were not legally authorized to work in the United States.
The firm was served with a Notice of Inspection on September 8, 2025, and received a Notice of Suspect Documents on September 25, according to the ruling.
Lattarulo and his law firm partner, Audai Cote, traveled from Boston to Aruba for a weekend trip later that month. Cote returned to Boston on September 27 without incident. When Lattarulo returned the following day, three CBP agents and an HSI officer stopped him as he got off the plane at Boston Logan International Airport, according to the ruling.
Agents seized his cellphone without a warrant and downloaded a complete copy of the data stored on it. Authorities returned the phone eight days later.
The copied data remains in a format that cannot currently be read or reviewed, but the administration said it intended to convert the information into an accessible format and search it if permitted by the court.
Judge Finds Evidence Supporting Retaliation Claim
Burroughs said several factors supported an inference of retaliation, including the unusual use of a cellphone search and its timing. Agents seized Lattarulo’s phone just three days after his firm received a Notice of Suspect Documents, despite an HSI policy that generally gives employers 10 business days to address questions about employees’ work authorization.
“That aggressive deviation from protocol strongly suggests that the seizure did not arise from an ordinary investigative motive,” Burroughs wrote.
The judge also pointed to the treatment of Lattarulo’s law firm partner, Audai Cote, who had the same or greater access to employment records but had not publicly spoken about immigrant rights. Cote was not subjected to a similar search.
Burroughs said Cote “would have been a more logical target” if authorities were seeking evidence at the earliest opportunity. Instead, she wrote, “the government opted to wait until Lattarulo touched down in Boston the next day and subject only him to an intrusive cell phone search.”
Burroughs concluded that the current record suggested Lattarulo was likely to establish that he would not have been searched but for his protected speech. The government said it had additional evidence supporting the search but declined to disclose it publicly because of the ongoing investigation, according to court filings.
Fourth Amendment Question Left Open
Burroughs declined to rule on whether the phone seizure violated the Fourth Amendment. The government argued it was allowed to search the phone at the border, but the judge questioned that reasoning because the investigation concerned alleged employment violations unrelated to Lattarulo’s trip.
“Rather, it appears that the government seized on a fortuitous border crossing following a weekend vacation as an opportunity to search for evidence of a domestic crime it was already investigating,” Burroughs wrote.
Government Barred From Reviewing Data
The phone data includes confidential information and attorney-client communications, according to the ruling. The government said it would use a “taint team” to protect privileged material if a search is eventually permitted.
Burroughs ordered the government to preserve the copied data in its current unreadable and unreviewable format until the case concludes, finding that allowing a search now could cause Lattarulo an irreparable loss of privacy.
She declined to order the data destroyed.
Contact Newsweek editor on this story: Edward Pearcey.
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