Apple announced on Thursday night that it was eliminating ICEBlock and other apps associated with its App Store, which allow users to report the location of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents anonymously.
This action followed pressure from Attorney General Pam Bondi and was accompanied by backlash against the Trump administration’s aggressive use of ICE agents.
The FBI reported that the gunman who killed two detained immigrants and wounded another in a Dallas ICE facility recently used apps that track the locations of ICE agents, last week.
Authorities stated that the gunman, Joshua Jahn, planned to kill ICE agents during the attack but killed himself instead.
In a statement to NBC News on Thursday, Apple said, “We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps.”
“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.
Apple initially removed ICEBlock and similar apps, as first reported by Fox Business.
Since its launch this year, ICEBlock has been downloaded over 1 million times, as per data shared with NBC News by the app tracking company Appfigures.
The app saw a peak of almost 114,000 downloads in one day on July 1, the day following a CNN story about the app, which sparked criticism across the Trump administration.
In a statement to Fox News Digital on Thursday, Bondi said, “We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so.”
In a further statement, Bondi Stated, “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.”
“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 added.
In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night, Trump administration border czar Tom Homan adds, “They’re gonna investigate these people who put these apps up — because it puts law enforcement at great risk.”
CNBC has sought to comment with the creator of ICEBlock, Joshua Aaron. ICEBlock was a free application launched on the App Store in April.
In a recent post about X last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pointed out that the man who fired at the ICE facility in Dallas on September 24 “was using one of these apps” to track ICE agents.
Shortly after Leavitt denounced the app in a White House press conference on June 30, ICEBlock rose to the top of the App Store among social networking apps.
On the same day, CNN had also published an article on the same app, quoting Aaron as stating that he had created ICEBlock when he noticed the deportations by the Trump administration intensified.
Meanwhile, Aaron said, “When I saw what was happening in this country, I wanted to do something to fight back.” he indicated that the immigration enforcement operations were Nazi Germany-like.
“We’re literally watching history repeat itself,” Aaron added.
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 added.
However, in an NBC interview days later, Aaron described the Trump administration’s criticism of ICEBlock as “another right-wing fearmongering scare tactic.”
He claimed the creation of the app to assist immigrants who fear 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.
