Keeping immigration documents on your iPhone

Practical thoughts on storing a passport, case papers and receipts on a phone, with help resources. General information, not legal advice.

This page does not give legal advice and cannot tell you what to do in your case. It covers how phones store files. Your rights and risks depend on your status, your case and where you live, and they can change quickly. Please talk to a qualified person about them.

Get legal help from the right people

USCIS says only certain people may represent you: a licensed attorney in good standing, or an accredited representative working for a recognized organization. In some countries, a notario is an attorney with special credentials. In the United States, a notary public is not an attorney.

Free and low-cost options:

• National Immigration Legal Services Directory, at immigrationadvocates.org/legaldirectory. Search by state, county or detention facility. It includes only nonprofits.
• Department of Justice pro bono list, for people in immigration court.
• DOJ roster of recognized organizations and accredited representatives, for checking whether someone is authorized.

If someone close to you is abusing you and using your status against you, the National Domestic Violence Hotline can help with that as well.

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center publishes free red cards in many languages that show examples of how people can exercise their constitutional rights. The ILRC notes that they are not individualized advice, and warns that some people on social media try to charge for them.

Keep a copy off your phone

Passports, receipt notices, court papers and work permits are hard to replace in a hurry, and a phone can be lost, stolen, broken or taken in a moment. Your plan should still work without the phone:

• Keep originals in one safe place, and make paper copies.
• Give copies to a person you trust, and give them your lawyer’s phone number.
• Write down the phone numbers you would need, on paper. People often realize too late that they only know these numbers through their contacts app.

Copies your phone makes

A photo of your passport can exist in more places than you expect.

• iCloud Photos copies it to every device on your Apple Account. On a shared family iPad, it can appear there too.
• Messages and email keep their own copy if you ever sent it to anyone, including your lawyer or a friend.
• Screenshots show up in your library, next to everything else.
• Memories and search can bring up old photos on their own.

Apple offers some controls:

• Hidden album. Hide photos of documents so they leave the library and other albums. Anyone who knows your passcode can open the album.
• Locked notes. A locked note can hold text, such as a receipt number. Apple says you cannot lock notes that have PDF attachments, and the title stays visible in the list, so give it a neutral title.
• Advanced Data Protection. This extends end-to-end encryption to iCloud Photos and Backup, if your account qualifies.

If a phone may be searched

CBP says it may search devices at the border, and what happens depends on your status. See our page on border searches. The ACLU warns that certain noncitizens should weigh the risks of flying, including inside the US. Talk to a lawyer about your travel plans before you go, and before you delete or move any records. Removing files can have consequences for your case that only an attorney can assess.