Ranking Member Raskin Probes Trump Administration’s Unconstitutional Campaign to Take Down Apps Monitoring Immigration Enforcement

Washington, D.C. (February 6, 2026)—Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, is demanding answers from Attorney General Pam Bondi on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) coercive campaign to block access to apps relied on by the public to report and share information about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) activity in their communities.

“Why is the Department of Justice (DOJ) violating the First Amendment by coercing big tech to block access to lawful apps that the American people use to record, report, and monitor the actions of our own government officers?” wrote Ranking Member Raskin. 

Amid the Trump Administration’s unprecedented anti-immigration crackdown, which has unleashed chaos, violence, and death in American communities, apps alerting users to ICE and CBP activity in their communities have been removed from key distribution channels such as the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, at the instigation of Attorney General Bondi.

For example, ICEBlock, described as “WAZE but for ICE sightings,” was created to alert users to ICE  activity in their proximity and allowing users to geolocate and describe ICE activities in real-time. ICEBlock successfully completed Apple’s internal approval process to be included in the Apple App Store. But months later, DOJ reached out to Apple demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store. Apple removed ICEBlock and similar apps mere hours after they were contacted by DOJ.

Bondi also threatened the developer of this lawful app, warning: “we are looking at him, and he better watch out, because that’s not a protected speech.” The Attorney General has even gone after news organizations like CNN for even mentioning ICEBlock. According to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, DHS is working with DOJ on a potential criminal prosecution of CNN just for reporting on the app. 

Shortly after Bondi boasted of coercing Apple, Google removed similar apps from its Play Store.

The Administration is attacking developers and users of these tools as part of a lawless effort to cover up the truth about ICE and CBP’s actions, including the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti and the subsequent cover-up.

Ranking Member Raskin is demanding that DOJ provide all documents and communications between the DOJ and Apple and Google related to ICE and CBP reporting apps, as well as documents and communications within DOJ, the White House, or DHS related to the apps.

Click here to read the letter.