ICEBlock, an app dedicated to alerting users about Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity, rose to the top of Apple's App Store charts on Tuesday, July 1.

By Chris Spiker From Daily Voice

The developer of an app that gathers anonymous reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity is suing the Trump administration for pressuring Apple to remove ICEBlock from the App Store.

App developer Joshua Aaron filed the lawsuit against more than a dozen Trump administration officials on Monday, Dec. 8. The suit's defendants include Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, acting ICE director Todd Lyons, and White House "border czar" Tom Homan.

Apple pulled ICEBlock and other similar apps from the App Store in October, claiming that the trackers put law enforcement in danger. ICEBlock uses crowdsourced reports of ICE sightings, visible within a five-mile radius, with alerts designed to expire after four hours.

The lawsuit, which was obtained by NPR, asks a judge to rule that the Trump administration violated the First Amendment after pressuring Apple and threatening Aaron with criminal prosecution.

"These threats were intended and designed to chill Aaron and others from engaging in expressive activity — specifically, sharing information about publicly observable law-enforcement actions — and to deter technology companies and journalistic institutions from supporting, amplifying, or facilitating such speech," the suit reads.

Bondi took credit for ICEBlock's removal in a Fox News interview shortly after the app was pulled.

"ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed," Bondi told Fox. "This Department of Justice will continue making every effort to protect our brave federal law enforcement officers, who risk their lives every day to keep Americans safe."

Bondi also suggested in her Fox News appearance that Aaron was under investigation. 

"We are looking at it, we are looking at him, and he better watch out, because that's not protected speech," she said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and President Donald Trump during a news conference at the White House on October 15, 2025.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and President Donald Trump during a news conference at the White House on October 15, 2025.

Wikimedia Commons - The White House

Noam Biale, a lawyer representing ICEBlock, said Bondi's comments to Fox News and several other media appearances show that the Trump administration forced a private company to silence speech.

"We view that as an admission that she engaged in coercion in her official role as a government official to get Apple to remove this app," Biale told NPR.

The DOJ and Apple haven't publicly commented on ICEBlock's lawsuit.

Aaron launched ICEBlock in April, and the app surged to the top of the App Store's charts in July after it was featured in a CNN report. While ICEBlock can no longer be downloaded, the roughly 1.1 million people who have the app can still use it.

ICEBlock was created to respond to President Donald Trump's widespread immigration crackdown and predominantly nonwhite communities living in fear of ICE raids.

"Aaron developed ICEBlock in response to the Trump Administration's unprecedented campaign to arrest, detain, and deport immigrants," the lawsuit said. "He feared that Trump's incendiary rhetoric about immigration would lead to aggressive, indiscriminate enforcement of immigration laws, exposing immigrants and citizens alike to violence and rampant violations of their civil liberties. Aaron was right."

While Apple is not named as a defendant, the tech giant is accused of caving to political pressure.

"The government succeeded in its campaign to coerce Apple into removing ICEBlock from the App Store," the suit continues. "For what appears to be the first time in Apple’s nearly fifty-year history, Apple removed a US-based app in response to the US government's demands."

While Trump administration officials have argued that ICEBlock encourages violence against ICE agents, Aaron has maintained that the app aims to keep communities informed without collecting user data. ICEBlock reports are only text, and the app doesn't allow photos or videos.

Aaron has also said that ICEBlock is similar to Google Maps and Waze, which warn drivers about traffic conditions and police officers in speed traps.

"Fundamentally, ICEBlock neither enables nor encourages confrontation — it simply delivers time-limited location information to help users stay aware of their surroundings in a responsible and nonviolent way," the suit reads. "Not only is it designed that way — with functionality that ensures it can only be used for informational purposes — but it also includes this express prohibition against any other use."

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Angola, LA, on September 3, 2025.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Angola, LA, on September 3, 2025.

Wikimedia Commons - DHSgov

First Amendment advocates say the case is the latest example of the Trump administration engaging in "jawboning," a tactic where government officials strongarm private companies into restricting free speech. The Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, calls jawboning "censorship by proxy."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is also suing the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security to release their communications with Apple and other tech companies that resulted in the removal of ICE-tracking apps.

"Federal immigration authorities' activities throughout the country have been controversial and the subject of ongoing protests and opposition by people living in those communities," the EFF said. "Many people have exercised their First Amendment rights to record law enforcement's activities and to report that information to the broader public through a variety of online applications and websites."

Google removed another similar app called Red Dot from the Google Play store, saying it shared the location of what the company called a "vulnerable group." Meta also took down a Facebook group with 80,000 members called "ICE Sighting-Chicagoland," which warned people in the Chicago area about masked ICE agents near popular locations like schools and grocery stores.

Bondi celebrated the Facebook group's removal in an October social media post.

"The wave of violence against ICE has been driven by online apps and social media campaigns designed to put ICE officers at risk just for doing their jobs," she wrote. "The Department of Justice will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement."

Aaron also told NPR that he hopes his lawsuit will lead to ICEBlock returning to the App Store, adding that "we will take it as far as it needs to go to ensure this never happens again."