Tell Apple and Google: Put ICE-tracking apps back on your app stores!

The petition to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai reads:

Re-platform apps that let users log sightings of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. These apps are protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It is an insult to users that Apple and Google would readily remove these crowdsourcing apps yet leave up harmful apps like nudify tools used to create nonconsensual sexual deepfakes.

ICE raids continue to terrorize our country, with Chicago currently at the epicenter. 

Just in the past two weeks, a number of alarming incidents involving ICE agents have occured. A Chicago teacher said that tear gas wafted toward a school playground. Two women were dragged from a car by ICE agents next to a school during pickup. In a militarized raid on an apartment building, 37 people were arrested in which women and children were zip-tied.

That’s why we’re appalled that Apple and Google capitulated to Trump by taking away one of the only tools that we have to stay informed and safe: apps that crowdsource ICE sightings.

There is an app for almost anything these days, including crowdsourcing apps that let us track speed traps, police sightings, road closures, violent crime, and more. Apps like ICEBlock and ICE Immigration Alert are no different from these examples. Designed to allow users to report sightings of ICE officers, these tools are essentially information aggregators–protected speech under the First Amendment.

But US Attorney General Pam Bondi demanded the removal of these apps, claiming that they are “designed to put ICE agenda at risk.” And Apple and Google both readily complied. For the safety of women and children in cities occupied by ICE, Apple and Google need to restore these apps to its app stores.