Apple removes ICE tracking app ICEBlock after Trump admin pressure

Apple on Thursday night said that it was removing ICEBlock and other apps from its App Store that can be used to anonymously report sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The move came after pressure on Apple from Attorney General Pam Bondi, and amid controversy over the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement of immigration law with ICE agents and other authorities.

The FBI said last week that a gunman whose attack on a Dallas ICE facility led to the deaths of two detained immigrants and the wounding of a third detainee had recently searched apps tracking the presence of ICE agents.

The gunman, Joshua Jahn, intended to kill ICE agents in the attack, which ended with him fatally shooting himself, authorities said.

“We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps,” Apple said in a statement to NBC News on Thursday.

“Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store,” the company said.

Fox Business first reported Apple’s booting of ICEBlock and other similar apps.

ICEBlock has been downloaded more than 1 million times since it was introduced this year, according to data provided to NBC News by the app tracking firm Appfigures. The app hit a high of nearly 114,000 downloads in a single day on July 1, a day after a CNN article about the app sparked criticism from the Trump administration. 

Bondi, in a statement to Fox News Digital on Thursday, said, “We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so.”

“ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed,” Bondi said in the statement.

“This Department of Justice will continue making every effort to protect our brave federal law enforcement officers, who risk their lives every day to keep Americans safe,” she said.

Trump administration border czar Tom Homan, in an interview Thursday night with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, said, “They’re gonna investigate these people who put these apps up — because it puts law enforcement at great risk.”

CNBC has reached out for comment from ICEBlock’s creator, Joshua Aaron.

ICEBlock, which was introduced on the App Store in April, is free.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a post on X last week, noted that the man who opened fire at the ICE facility in Dallas on Sept. 24 “was using one of these apps” to track ICE agents.

ICEBlock became the top social networking app in the App Store shortly after Leavitt condemned the app during a White House press briefing on June 30.

CNN, that same day, had published an article on the app that quoted Aaron as saying that he developed ICEBlock after seeing the Trump administration’s deportation efforts escalate.

“When I saw what was happening in this country, I wanted to do something to fight back,” Aaron said at the time, suggesting that the immigration enforcement efforts were reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

“We’re literally watching history repeat itself.”

ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, on June 30 said, “Advertising an app that basically paints a target on federal law enforcement officers’ backs is sickening.”

“My officers and agents are already facing a 500% increase in assaults, and going on live television to announce an app that lets anyone zero in on their locations is like inviting violence against them with a national megaphone,” Lyons said.

But Aaron, in an NBC interview days later, called the Trump administration’s criticism of ICEBlock “another right-wing fearmongering scare tactic.”

He said he designed the app to help immigrants who are afraid of being deported.

“I grew up in a Jewish household, and being part of the Jewish community, I had the chance to meet Holocaust survivors and learn the history of what happened in Nazi Germany, and the parallels that we can draw between what’s happening right now in our country and Hitler’s rise to power are undeniable,” Aaron said.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this story.