Apple CEO Tim Cook walks to attend the State Banquet at Windsor Castle, in Windsor, Britain, Sept. 17, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Apple on Thursday night said that it was removing 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 who killed two one detained immigrants and wounded a third detainee at an ICE facility in Dallas had recently searched apps tracking the presence of ICE agents.
“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 the app and other similar apps.
Bondi, in a statement to Fox News Digital, 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.
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.
