U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at Port Everglades deported four cruise ship crew members, according to Crew Center. Following what the CBP claims was “routine screening,” the cell phones of four crew members allegedly contained child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) which the crew members admitted possessing.

CBP officials released the photo above showing the backs of the arrested crew members, but provided no details about the cruise ships, the crew names or nationalities, or the alleged images. The CBP officials did confirm that all four crew members had their seaman visas revoked and were processed for removal rather than criminal prosecution in the United States.

This development now brings the total number of arrested crew members for alleged possession of CSAM to over 200. As of July of last year (2025), Maritime Executive wrote that the U.S. had revoked the visas of and deported over 100 Filipino cruise ship crew members from Norfolk, Virginia, to Port Canaveral, Florida for alleged possession of CSAM.

Maritime Executive explained that the Pilipino Workers Center and the National Federation of Filipino American Associations contend that the crew members are being removed from their ships and deported without due process. Crew members are scared as the port arrivals have been met by CBP officers who remove the crewmembers in handcuffs frequently “without a shred of evidence.”

As of November 2025, we reported that nearly 200 crew members have been accused of possessing CSAM on cruise ships in the past 24 months. Around 20 were arrested and prosecuted, mostly over 6 months ago, with around 170 deported since that time.

These cases mostly fit a familiar pattern of mistreatment of the foreign crew member by CBP officials who do not permit the ship employees to speak to legal counsel or embassy officials and routinely deny them their due process and equal protection rights. These most recent four crew members fit the disturbing pattern we last reported in November 2025 in our article titled Four Crew Members in Port Canaveral Deported For Child Sexual Abuse Material.

If a crew member actually has possession of child sexual abuse materials, he should be arrested and prosecuted, and the U.S. government’s allegations should be tested and scrutinized. It is grossly unfair for the CBP to present no evidence of a crime, automatically and summarily deny a ship employee his fundamental rights, strip him of his 10 year seaman visa, and then send him back to his home country where he faces unemployment and will endure severe economic hardship.

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