ICEBlock creator sues Trump admin for pressuring Apple to remove app
The developer of ICEBlock, an app used to report sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, sued the Trump administration on Monday after it pressured Apple to take the service off its app store. ICEBlock creator Joshua Aaron, who filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says the administration’s actions violated his First Amendment right to free speech.
The lawsuit cites remarks by numerous Trump administration officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, who told Fox News Digital in October that Apple removed ICEBlock in response to demands from the White House.
“We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so,” Bondi said.
Aaron’s lawyer, Noam Biale, says Bondi’s comments show that the administration violated the First Amendment by pressuring the tech giant.
“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.
Top officials named in suit
The lawsuit also names Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem; Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE; Thomas Homan, the White House border czar; and others. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused ICEBlock and Aaron not only of putting ICE agents at risk but of potentially obstructing justice as well.
Aaron has denied the Trump administration’s framing of the app. In a statement to Straight Arrow News in October, Aaron said that “ICEBlock is no different from crowd sourcing speed traps, which every notable mapping application, including Apple’s own Maps app, implements as part of its core services.”
“During the initial app review we went back and forth for three weeks with both the app review team and their legal department, because nothing like this has ever been done before,” Aaron said. “Apple’s legal team thoroughly vetted it, as I’m sure they wanted to protect themselves from legal implications, too.”
Neither Apple nor the Trump administration has publicly commented on the lawsuit.
Aaron’s app is not the only ICE-reporting tool to be removed following demands from the Trump administration.
Bondi also took credit in October after Facebook took down a group that shared information about ICE activity in Chicago. An ICE reporting app known as Red Dot was also removed from both Apple’s and Google’s app stores in October.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
