The Feds Used Threats To Silence Their ICE-Tracking Speech. Now They're Fighting Back.
A lawsuit argues that Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem coerced Apple and Meta to censor two popular ICE-monitoring tools, which violates Americans' right to freedom of expression.
When the Trump administration's immigration crackdown began last year, several entrepreneurs and concerned citizens established support groups and apps to track the movement of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. These efforts were quickly squelched by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, who are now facing a lawsuit as a result.
The federal lawsuit, filed this week by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression (FIRE), argues that both Noem and Bondi have "repeatedly threatened to prosecute individuals and entities for disseminating information…about ICE operations," a violation of Americans' right to freedom of expression.
Such threats began last July, when the Trump administration condemned CNN for reporting about an app called ICEBlock, which used crowdsourcing to track ICE activity, and accused such platforms of endangering the lives of immigration officers. After officials called for CNN to be investigated, Noem told a reporter, "We're working with the Department of Justice to see if we can prosecute [CNN] for that, because what they're doing is actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement.…We're going to actually go after them and prosecute them." Bondi also threatened prosecution when she told Fox News that the creator of ICEBlock "better watch out."
By early October, tech companies began removing apps like ICEBlock and Eyes Up—which was founded by Kreisau Group LLC, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit—from their app stores. With Eyes Up, users were able to document and preserve evidence of government abuses of power by uploading and archiving pre-existing videos, live recording and uploading new content, and viewing videos uploaded by others.
Even though Americans have the right to record public law enforcement activity and to share those recordings, Apple yielded to Bondi and Noem's demands by removing Eyes Up from the Apple App Store last year. The company cited guideline violations for the removal, but according to the complaint, such violations had not been previously mentioned. FIRE argues that "Apple reasonably understood Bondi and Noem's course of conduct to convey a threat of adverse government action against Apple in order to suppress Kreisau Group's speech," in violation of the First Amendment.
After coercing Apple, Bondi and Noem moved on to Meta, Facebook's parent company. In mid-October, Bondi took credit for the removal of a popular Facebook group called "ICE Sightings – Chicagoland," which was started by Kassandra Rosado, the second plaintiff in the case. Even though Meta cited guideline violations for the removal, Bondi openly bragged in an X post that "outreach" from the Justice Department is what truly led to the removal of the social media group, according to the lawsuit. She also accused the group of doxing and targeting ICE agents, and vowed she would "continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement."
But Rosado didn't create the social media group to incite violence, but to keep her community safe and informed, according to FIRE. As a small business owner and U.S. citizen of Mexican descent living in the Chicago area, Rosado launched the group to share information, including photos and videos, of nearby ICE operations.
Rosado's group grew rapidly after reports circulated about ICE's use of excessive force—including two ICE-involved shootings—and arrests of citizens and legal immigrants alike amid "Operation Midway Blitz," the federal immigration crackdown in Chicago, last fall. By October 2025, the group had nearly 100,000 members, many of whom used the page's shared information to safely avoid areas where ICE was active. Others used the group to voice their opinions about ICE's tactics.
Although both Apple and Meta cited guideline violations for the removals of Eyes Up and "ICE Sightings – Chicagoland," neither company, according to FIRE, signaled that these platforms were in danger of being shut down before the Justice Department made its "outreach." Both instances involve government officials unconstitutionally using their position of power to coerce private companies to do what the federal government cannot: suppress the protected speech of Americans.
More unsettlingly, these actions target political opinions that disagree with the Trump administration's immigration policies. Although officials have denounced the existence of ICE-sighting groups for posting operation details and endangering the lives of officers, neither Bondi nor Noem has threatened to prosecute social media accounts that share videos and photos of operations in a pro-ICE way—including ICE's own social media accounts.
The First Amendment protects Americans from government actions that abridge free speech, which includes the right to report and share information about law enforcement. By taking credit for successfully jawboning Apple and Meta into complying with its unconstitutional demands, the government has, by extension, taken credit for violating the constitutional rights of Americans.
