Tech giant Apple has announced 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.
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.”
