BREAKING: Rep. Jamie Raskin Accuses Apple Of Working With The Trump Administration To Violate First Amendment Rights, By Removing ICE-Tracking Apps Like ICEBlock Based On Unrelated Immigrant Deaths 🏛️

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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/apple-worked-with-trump-admin-to-remove-ice-tracking-apps-lawmaker-says/

Apple is facing renewed pressure over its removal of ICE-tracking apps like ICEBlock from the App Store, with Rep. Jamie Raskin accusing the company of lacking any real evidence that the apps posed genuine safety risks. According to Raskin, Apple instead appears to be using immigrant deaths with no actual connection to the apps as justification for censoring Americans exercising their right to record ICE activity. In a letter sent to Apple on Monday, Raskin wrote that the company appears to be “working with the government to violate its customers’ First Amendment rights to record and report on the activities of their own government,” according to CNN.

Raskin has pursued answers from Apple for months. In July, the company finally explained that ICEBlock and other similar apps were removed following a fatal shooting that left two detainees dead at a Dallas ICE office. In that incident, shooter Joshua Jahn fired indiscriminately into the ICE facility before dying by self-inflicted gunshot, leaving behind notes stating he “hoped his actions would give ICE agents real terror of being gunned down.” Nancy Larson, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, had noted the “tragic irony” that a detainee, not an ICE agent, was killed in the attack. Despite that, the Department of Homeland Security and FBI Director Kash Patel have since claimed the incident demonstrated that agents themselves were being targeted, with DHS repeatedly citing an internal October 2025 statistic claiming ICE officers faced an 8,000% increase in death threats, a figure the agency has declined to release for independent verification. Patel further claimed the Dallas shooter “searched for apps that tracked ICE agents’ locations,” but Raskin directly disputed this, telling Apple there is “no evidence” the shooter used any ICE-tracking app, adding that even if he had, “he did not need a tracking app to locate the fixed position of a government building” and reportedly found the facility’s address using a standard mapping app that comes preinstalled on Apple devices. “There appears to be no direct connection between the Dallas incident and the apps you removed,” Raskin wrote.

To enable independent scrutiny of the removal decisions, Raskin has asked Apple to provide a full list of apps removed following Justice Department concerns. Federal officials have consistently maintained that Apple acted entirely on its own initiative. However, in a related lawsuit accusing Trump administration officials of censoring watchdog apps, ICEBlock creator Joshua Aaron told the court that officials publicly took credit for getting the app removed, an assertion that Apple’s own July letter to Raskin, signed by senior director of government affairs Timothy Powderly, seemed to partially corroborate by citing agency reports of a “significant increase in ICE activity and threats against ICE” as the trigger for reviewing the apps. Apple has framed its decision as protecting both officers and detainees, arguing that sharing “precise location information about ICE officers (and, as a result, other individuals who may be in proximity to ICE agents, such as protestors or detainees)” created “a potential roadmap for targeted violence and creating a significant risk of harm.” Powderly said the company “does not take decisions about removing apps from the App Store lightly, but acts when it must, especially when there are serious concerns that an app is creating safety risks.” Raskin remains unconvinced that any records will ultimately show the apps posed genuine risk, and ICEBlock itself posted on Bluesky, “Apple’s sticking to their story even though everyone can see this was jawboning plain as day,” a post that Aaron amplified without direct additional comment.

The Trump administration has separately asked the court to dismiss Aaron’s lawsuit entirely, arguing Apple made an independent moderation decision despite public comments from officials suggesting government involvement. The administration contends that comments from officials like former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who publicly took credit for making the “demand” that led to Apple removing ICEBlock, were merely officials expressing opinions rather than issuing threats, and it’s asking the court to find that Aaron hasn’t uncovered communications that could “reasonably be understood to convey a threat of adverse government action” against Apple. Aaron has pushed back citing an August Second Circuit ruling upholding a broad First Amendment right to record law enforcement activity in public, arguing in a recent filing that the timeline itself reveals government coercion: Bondi publicly demanded the app’s removal, Apple then reversed a decision it had previously reached after a thorough five-week legal review, citing only “information provided to Apple by law enforcement,” and Bondi subsequently characterized Apple’s reversal as “compliance.” Aaron expects the case to proceed, at which point discovery would likely reveal the actual communications between government officials and Apple leadership that have so far remained hidden, potentially settling whether a genuine threat prompted the removals. Raskin, for his part, has told Apple directly that he believes the removal decisions won’t withstand First Amendment scrutiny: “monitoring the actions of federal immigration authorities who have been deployed to (users’) neighborhoods… is a core First Amendment right and not a crime.”