The creator behind ICEBlock, an app that tracked immigration enforcement officials’ activities, is suing the Trump administration two months after his app was removed from the Apple app store following criticism from officials.
After ICEBlock soared in popularity earlier this year, the Trump administration accused the app, which allowed users to share real-time sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their area, of putting agents at risk. In October, Apple announced that it had removed ICEBlock and other apps like it from its app store, citing information they had “received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock.”
On Monday, Joshua Aaron, ICEBlock’s Texas-based developer, filed a lawsuit against several Trump administration officials alleging they successfully pressured Apple to remove the app.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, accuses Attorney General Pam Bondi, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE’s acting Director Todd Lyons and White House border czar Tom Homan of making “unconstitutional threats and demands against Apple” in violation of the First Amendment.
“For what appears to be the first time in Apple’s nearly fifty-year history, Apple removed a U.S.-based app in response to the U.S. government’s demands,” the complaint states.
The White House and DOJ declined to comment. ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Apple, which is not a defendant in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS' assistant secretary for public affairs, said in an email statement that ICE tracking apps "put the lives of the men and women of law enforcement in danger," adding that the agents are facing "more than a 1150% increase in assaults against them and an 8000% increase in death threats."
“But, of course, the media spins this correct decision for Apple to remove these apps as them caving to pressure instead of preventing further bloodshed and stopping law enforcement from getting killed," McLaughlin wrote.
Since the app store was launched in 2008, Apple has sometimes pulled products, such as a platform that allowed protesters to track police activity in Hong Kong and a slew of VPN services in Russia, in the wake of government backlash or at the request of state officials. But the tech giant’s transparency reports have never recorded the company complying with government-demanded takedowns in the United States.
Monday’s lawsuit cited Bondi’s statement from October, which acknowledged that the administration “reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so.”
The lawsuit also outlined the backlash ICEBlock faced after a CNN article about the app prompted an outpouring of criticism from senior Trump administration officials. The complaint alleged that these officials “launched a coordinated campaign of retaliation” against Aaron.
Lyons “falsely asserted that ICEBlock ‘invit[es] violence’ and suggested that the Department of Justice (‘DOJ’) should pressure CNN to stop reporting favorably on the App”; Homan “echoed Lyons’s call for a DOJ investigation”; and Noem “amplif[ied] demands that DOJ investigate and prosecute CNN for its reporting,” the lawsuit states.
Bondi “publicly implied that Aaron had committed a federal crime by creating ICEBlock and warned Aaron that he was under investigation,” according to the lawsuit.
ICEBlock has always displayed a disclaimer on its homepage stating that the app was to be used for “information and notification purposes only” and not for the purpose of “inciting violence or interfering with law enforcement.”
The lawsuit also noted that all reported sightings are automatically removed from the map after four hours, after which “all associated data and records are permanently removed from ICEBlock’s system and cannot be recovered. ICEBlock cannot be used to track ICE agents’ historical presence or movements.”
“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 complaint stated. “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.”
Aaron’s lawsuit asks the court to permanently prohibit the defendants from “coercing, threatening, or demanding Apple or other app distribution services in order to stop distribution of the App” and from “threatening, investigating, or prosecuting Aaron.”
The app had more than 1 million users at the time of its removal in October, according to the lawsuit.
