A civil rights organization is suing the Trump administration for pressuring major technology companies to remove information tracking Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arguing Washington violated free speech rights.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech absolutist group, is representing two plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit against the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice in an Illinois district court on Wednesday, alleging the Trump administration engaged in illegal censorship to control information.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi undermined constitutional protections when they “strong-armed” Apple and Facebook into removing ICE activity monitoring from company platforms, according to the group’s lawsuit. After pressure from the Trump administration, Apple removed Eyes Up and similar apps that allowed users to report sightings of ICE officials in real-time last fall, while Facebook removed a comparable account with over 84,000 members.
“As we’ve seen across the country, especially in Minneapolis, citizen videos have informed discussion and debate about ICE’s operations and tactics,” FIRE attorney Colin McDonell said in a statement. “The right to share information about our government is essential to a free society. If someone goes out and commits a crime, they can and should be punished for their actions. But in a free society, we don’t punish protected speech.”
The Trump administration argues that ICE trackers exist to endanger law enforcement and has framed them as a direct threat to federal agents, suggesting that, as such, they pose a violation of the law.
FIRE believes that the apps are protected under the First Amendment.
“The First Amendment protects the right to discuss, record, and criticize what law enforcement does in public,” the organization said.
The controversy with Apple has largely centered on ICEBlock, which allowed users to report the locations of immigration enforcement officers. In early October 2025, Apple removed the app from its App Store after Bondi said she reached out to Apple “demanding” that the company do so. At the time, Bondi claimed that the app did not fall under protected speech. Noem said the app “sure looks like” an obstruction of justice and that those guilty of obstruction of justice would “be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” And Noem began working with the attorney general to see if the administration could prosecute CNN after the outlet aired a segment profiling the app.
After the pressure, Apple said it removed ICEBlock and similar apps from the App Store due to “information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated” with the app. FIRE’s new lawsuit says Eyes Up was among the “similar apps” removed from Apple’s app store. Eyes Up developer Mark Hodges said this week that U.S. citizens “have the right to keep each other informed about what our government officials are doing and how they’re doing it.” ICEBlock’s Joshua Aaron responded to his app’s removal by expressing concern that Apple was “capitulating to an authoritarian regime.”
In October 2025, Facebook also removed an account reporting on ICE operations that had over 84,000 members, after Bondi said the Justice Department asked the social media platform to take the page down.
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The Trump administration’s pressure on social media companies has triggered scrutiny, including from House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who announced an investigation into the matter earlier this month.
“The coercion and censorship campaign, which ultimately targets the users of ICE-monitoring applications, is a clear effort to silence this Administration’s critics,” the Maryland Democrat wrote in a letter to the Justice Department.