Apple and Google block apps that crowdsource ICE sightings. Some warn of
chilling effects
[October 06, 2025] By
WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS, MATT O'BRIEN and KELVIN CHAN
Apple and Google blocked downloads of phone apps that flag sightings of
U.S. immigration agents, just hours after the Trump administration
demanded that one particularly popular iPhone app be taken down.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said such tracking puts Immigration and
Customs Enforcement officers at risk. But users and developers of the
apps say it’s their First Amendment right to capture what ICE is doing
in their neighborhoods — and maintain that most users turn to these
platforms in an effort to protect their own safety as President Donald
Trump steps up aggressive immigration enforcement across the country.
ICEBlock, the most widely used of the ICE-tracking apps in Apple’s app
store, is among the apps that have been taken down. Bondi said her
office reached out to Apple on Thursday “demanding that they remove
ICEBlock" and claiming that it “is designed to put ICE agents at risk
just for doing their jobs.”
Apple soon complied, sending an email Thursday to the app's creator,
Joshua Aaron, that said it would block further downloads of the app
because new information “provided to Apple by law enforcement” showed
the app broke the app store rules.
According to the email, which Aaron shared with The Associated Press,
Apple said the app violated the company’s policies “because its purpose
is to provide location information about law enforcement officers that
can be used to harm such officers individually or as a group.”
In a Friday interview, Aaron decried the company for bending to what he
described as “an authoritarian regime.” And immigration rights advocates
like Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, added
that these actions marked “a disturbing example of how tech companies
are capitulating to Trump.”
“These apps are a lifeline for communities living in uncertainty and
fear of when ICE might show up to tear their families apart,” Matos said
in a statement.
Downloads of apps like ICEBlock have surged since Trump took office for
his second term earlier this year. Aaron said he launched the app in
April as a way to help immigrant communities protect themselves from
surprise raids or potential harassment. It had more than 1 million
users, he said.
While not specifying details on the total number of platforms removed,
Apple confirmed to the AP on Friday that they removed “similar apps” due
to potential safety risks that were raised by law enforcement. Google
followed their move, saying that several similar apps violated their
policies for Android platforms.
While some advocates don't find all of these apps particularly useful —
pointing to potential misinformation and false alarms — they echoed
criticism of moves to suppress them.
“What really worries me is the kind of precedent that this sets” where
the government can “basically dictate what kinds of apps people have on
their phones,” said civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo, who works
at Harvard University's Cyberlaw Clinic.
Caraballo said outside the U.S., government pressure to block apps has
been “kind of a hallmark of an authoritarian regime,” such as when
Chinese pressure in 2019 led Apple to remove an app that enabled Hong
Kong protesters to track police.
Bondi warned over the summer against apps that allow people to
communicate about the location of law enforcement officers and
specifically called out ICEBlock’s Aaron.
“We are looking at him and he better watch out because that’s not a
protected speech,” Bondi said in a July interview on Fox News.
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Pedestrians chant, "ICE go home!" as federal immigration agents walk
along North Clark Street in the River North neighborhood, Sunday,
Sept. 28, 2025, in Chicago. (Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)
 Those warnings escalated last month
after a gunman opened fire on an ICE facility in Dallas. Officials
including FBI Director Kash Patel said the gunman had searched for
apps that tracked the presence of ICE agents, though they haven't
said if he actually used one of the apps or whether any of them
played a role in the attack.
Aaron said tying the gunman to the apps made little sense because
the app only works if somebody else is reporting ICE activity within
a 5-mile radius of another iPhone user.
“You don’t need an app to know that ICE agents are at an ICE
detention facility,” he said. “This is just an easy excuse for them
to use their power and leverage to take down something that was
exposing what they are doing — and that is the terror that they are
invoking on the people of this nation every single day."
He also said the app worked similarly to popular navigation apps
like Waze, Google Maps and Apple’s own Maps app, which allow users
to report police speed traps.
It's “not illegal in any way, shape or form, nor does it dox
anybody,” he said, adding that ICEBlock is similarly “an early
warning system for people.”
Those who use the apps or other online methods to monitor ICE
activity say most people who use them do so for their own safety or
out of concern for their loved ones.
“People are extremely scared right now," said Sherman Austin, who
founded Stop ICE Raids Alert Network in February. He pointed to
rising fears around racial profiling and violent arrests impacting
families.
"They want to know what’s going on in their neighborhood and what’s
going on in their community,” Austin said, describing people getting
violently thrown to the ground by ICE agents in broad daylight.
Also known as StopICE.Net, Austin’s platform similarly uses
crowdsourcing, but instead allows its users to track ICE activity
more broadly online or through text alerts, without the need to
download a separate app. Austin says the platform has reached more
than 500,000 subscribers as of Friday.
The group has similarly criticized the Trump administration for what
it says are retaliatory attacks targeting those who are exercising
their First Amendment rights. Last month, the platform said it
learned that the Department of Homeland Security has subpoenaed Meta
for data on StopICE.Net's Instagram account.
Austin said StopICE.Net immediately challenged the action, adding on
Friday that the subpoena is now temporarily blocked and pending a
hearing with a judge.
Meta declined comment Friday. DHS did not directly respond to a
request for comment about the subpoena on Friday, instead directing
the AP to a statement from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin,
who reiterated that “ICE tracking apps put the lives of the men and
women of law enforcement in danger" and criticized media outlets for
framing Apple's “correct decision” to remove apps like ICEBlock as
"caving to pressure instead of preventing further bloodshed.”
Developers like Austin, meanwhile, say removals of these apps and
other federal threats should alarm everyone.
“We’re up against a regime, an administration that’s going to
operate any way it wants to — and threatens whoever it wants in
order to get its way, in order to control information and in order
to control a narrative," he said. “We have to challenge this and
fight this any way we can.”
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