A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department and U.S. Department of Homeland Security not to pressure Facebook and Apple from banning ICE-monitoring apps and social media groups.
The preliminary injunction ruling, issued last week by U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso, stems from a lawsuit filed in February by Kassandra “Kae” Rosado against former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
Rosado alleges that both federal agencies coerced Facebook into removing her “ICE Sighting-Chicagoland” group, which aimed to keep residents informed about where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were seen in the Chicago area.
Mark Hodges, an Indiana resident who created the mobile app Eyes Up, which allowed users to record, securely store and view videos of ICE officers committing potential civil rights violations, also joined the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims Apple removed Hodges’ app from the App Store in October — during the height of the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” deportation campaign — after pressure from the federal government.
The judge’s order says Justice Department and DHS officials can no longer take actions to demand or pressure Facebook to suppress Rosado’s Facebook group or pressure Apple to suppress Hodges’ app.
The Justice Department and DHS were given until Tuesday to notify its employees, Facebook’s parent company Meta, and Apple of the order, and to file a status report documenting the agencies’ actions to comply.
"The First Amendment protects our right to share information about our government, including reporting on what law enforcement does in public," Colin McDonell, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. "This is a very encouraging ruling, and we look forward to fully vindicating our clients’ rights as the case progresses."
“ICE tracking apps put the lives of the men and women of law enforcement in danger as they go after terrorists, vicious gangs and violent criminal rings," a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. "Our law officers are facing a 1,300% increase in assaults, a 3,300% increase in vehicle attacks, and an 8,000% increase in death threats. Further, these apps are a method to interfere with law enforcement activities and harbor illegal aliens.”
Rosado’s group had nearly 100,000 members in October and had thousands of posts and comments per day about immigration-related arrests and violent interactions with immigration agents across the Chicago area.
On Oct. 12, right-wing activist and Trump ally Laura Loomer tagged the Justice Department and DHS leaders in a post claiming that the Facebook page and others like it “are getting people killed.” The next day, Loomer said in a post that a Justice Department source told her that they had contacted executives at Meta, “to tell them they need to remove these ICE tracking pages from the platform.”
Read the preliminary injunction:
