A report from the borderland between freedom and arbitrariness.
You no longer enter a country. You pass a test. A moral, electronic, ideological test, and often enough, a political one.
On April 5, 2025, it became official: Canada’s government is warning its citizens that when entering the United States, they should expect “enhanced scrutiny.” What sounds like a routine update on a travel website is, in truth, the admission of a rupture - a tectonic shift in the relationship between two countries once called brothers.
What lies behind this?
The border with the U.S. is no longer just geographic. It is digital. It is ideological. It is invisible, and yet it penetrates everything. Those who travel to the United States, Ottawa now warns, should expect their smartphones to be searched, their emails to be read, their social media posts to be evaluated.
And if the evaluation is negative, for example, if one has privately expressed criticism of President Donald Trump - then a visit can turn into a deportation case. Or detention. Or eleven days in a concrete cell, as Jasmine Mooney from Alberta experienced after attempting to clarify her work visa status at the Mexican border. She was arrested, detained, due to an administrative doubt about her loyalty.
In the words of the Canadian government:
“U.S. authorities strictly enforce entry requirements. Expect scrutiny at ports of entry, including of electronic devices.”
What used to be a handshake between liberal democracies is now a digital inspection, without court order, without legal counsel, without escape.
The fact that even Ottawa is now recommending that travelers use a “burner phone,” or simply travel without any devices at all, is no longer travel advice. It is an alarm call. One that is also being heard in Berlin, Copenhagen, and London. There too, governments have tightened their warnings to citizens - especially queer travelers, who under new federal U.S. guidelines must expect targeted discrimination.
And all this is not the result of war or terrorism. It is the result of politics. Of Trump’s second term, which has turned a nation into a laboratory for power displacement. The American border is no longer a zone of protection - it is a testing ground for conformity.
CBP officers need no court order. They need no justification. The mere suspicion that a Facebook post, a WhatsApp message, a Google search might be objectionable is enough. Devices are open like diaries, and the diary determines your access to the free world.
And Canada?
Canada responds diplomatically.
But it responds.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, who just a few weeks ago sharpened his tone toward Washington, has called snap elections for April 28. The tone has been set: the U.S. is no longer the reliable partner it once was. Ottawa has announced retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. And on the streets, some are already asking: when will Canada begin tightening entry controls for Americans?
In Washington, meanwhile, silence.
Trump spent Saturday golfing in Palm Beach, while at the border, people were being searched as if they were potential traitors. And in the White House, tweets were issued claiming the U.S. must defend its “national identity” – a phrase that, when translated, means only one thing: conformity is security.
But freedom, real, uncomfortable, contradictory freedom - is risk. A risk that the United States is no longer willing to take. They no longer just check whether you have a visa. They check what you think.
Welcome to the new world. It’s no longer a country, it’s a filter. And you’re only welcome if you pass through clean.
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