ICEBlock climbs to the top of the App Store charts after officials slam it
CNN's piece talked about how the app's developer, Joshua Aaron, launched it in early April after seeing the Trump administration crack down on immigration. When the piece went live, Aaron said the app had 20,000 users, many of whom live in Los Angeles, where ICE has been raiding neighborhoods. In addition to letting users pin ICE agent locations on a map, the app also gives them a way to add notes, such as what the agents are wearing or what car they're driving. Any user within a five mile radius of the sighting will get an alert.
But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that the CNN piece was "an incitement of further violence against... ICE officers" when asked to respond to the report on the podium. She said that there's been a 500 percent increase against ICE agents who are just "trying to do their jobs and remove public safety threats from... communities." ICE acting Director Todd M. Lyons also issued a statement, saying that the app paints a target on federal law enforcement officers' backs. " CNN is willfully endangering the lives of officers who put their lives on the line every day and enabling dangerous criminal aliens to evade US law," he continued. "Is this simply reckless 'journalism' or overt activism?"
Meanwhile, US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and US Attorney General Pam Bondi both said the government is going after Aaron. "He's giving a message to criminals where our federal officers are," Bondi said. "...we are looking at it, we are looking at him, and he better watch out, because that's not a protected speech. That is threatening the lives of our law enforcement officers throughout this country."'
Aaron told CNN that ICEBlock doesn't collect personal data, such as device IDs and IP addresses, which TechCrunch has confirmed in a test. The app is only available on iOS, because it would have to collect information on Android that could put people at risk. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
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Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
Immigration raids targeting workers spark dissent even in Trump-friendly Orange County
As protests broke out in cities across Southern California over President Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement sweeps, the mood in Huntington Beach was celebratory. 'Make America Great Again' and 'Trump 2024' banners waved at the intersection of Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway as the president's supporters turned out at a protest last month. One sign held up by a teen encouraged attendees to 'support your local ICE raid.' It wasn't a surprise in the conservative beach town where leaders had months earlier declared Huntington Beach a nonsanctuary city. At the time, the city filed a lawsuit against the state over its law limiting cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, arguing that illegal immigration was to blame for a rise in crime. 'Huntington Beach will not sit idly by and allow the obstructionist sanctuary state law to put our 200,000 residents at risk of harm from those who seek to commit violent crimes on U.S. soil,' Mayor Pat Burns said at the time. Elsewhere in Orange County, particularly in cities with higher immigrant populations, the conversation about the raids has been much more muted. Republicans who voted for Trump and support his efforts to deport those who have committed crimes expressed hesitation about the sweeps that have targeted workers and longtime residents. A group of Republican legislators in California, including two who represent Orange County, sent a letter to Trump last week urging him to direct United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security to focus their enforcement operations on criminals and 'avoid the kinds of sweeping raids that instill fear and disrupt the workplace.' 'The fear is driving vital workers out of critical industries, taking California's affordability crisis and making it even worse for our constituents,' wrote the legislators, including Assemblymembers Diane Dixon (R-Newport Beach) and Laurie Davies (R-Laguna Niguel). They called on Trump to modernize the country's immigration process to give undocumented immigrants with long-standing local ties a path toward legal status. Jo Reitkopp, a Republican political organizer from Orange, supports Trump's immigration policy, saying that she believes the country has become safer since he began fulfilling his campaign promise to rid the country of criminals. But her own family's history has softened her opinion about the raids, despite her stance that deportations should continue. Her father, an undocumented immigrant from Sicily, was deported to Italy in the 1950s after he'd met Reitkopp's mother. He later returned to America using a pathway for immigrants to gain legal status, she said. 'I do have a lot of compassion for the people who don't know their home country or came when they were 5,' she said. 'I don't understand why they never became citizens. If they would've, they wouldn't have been deported.' Although Trump has repeatedly said his administration is focusing deportation efforts on criminals, data show that the majority of those arrested in early June in the Los Angeles area were men who had never been charged with a crime. In the early days of the enforcement action — between June 1 and 10 — about 69% of those arrested in the Los Angeles region had no criminal conviction and 58% had never been charged with a crime, according to a Times data analysis. Reitkopp said it's 'sad' when raids sweep up individuals who haven't committed crimes. But the federal government's offer for undocumented immigrants to self-deport and possibly have a chance to return is a silver lining, she added. 'It's a bad scenario, but [Trump] is giving them an opportunity,' she said. Trump's plans for deportations that he outlined during his campaign aren't particularly popular among many Orange County voters. Only a third of Orange County residents who responded to a UC Irvine poll published in January agreed with Trump on the issue. Nearly 60% of residents polled preferred that undocumented individuals have an option to obtain legal status. Although almost half of white respondents supported deportations, nearly three-quarters of Latino respondents preferred an option for legal status, the poll shows. Orange County is home to roughly 236,000 undocumented immigrants, the majority of whom were born in Mexico, Central America and Asia, according to data published in 2019 from the Migration Policy Institute. Data at the time show that 33% of those undocumented individuals had been in the United States for at least 20 years and that 67% were employed. Jeffrey Ball, president and CEO of the Orange County Business Council, said he agrees with California lawmakers calling for immigration enforcement to be focused on criminals rather than broader sweeps. While businesses so far haven't reported significant impacts, Ball said when people don't feel safe working 'it's not the type of positive environment you want from a business standpoint.' 'This immigrant population is an important part of our workforce,' he said. 'We are still in a labor shortage in this region and so to the extent you have people leaving the region out of fear or not feeling comfortable going to work it further exacerbates some of the problems we have related to the efficiency and reliability of the workforce.' Christopher Granucci, an independent, acknowledged that although illegal immigration has become a problem for many in Southern California, he's troubled by the indiscriminate nature of the deportations. 'We have millions and millions of people who came in, but I think they need to be laser-focused on the real criminals,' Granucci said. 'I think for those criminals, everyone in the country agrees that they should be kicked out.' As a teacher, Granucci has seen students whose parents aren't legal residents or are on a path to obtaining residency. 'If they could be more strategic about who is being removed, that would be so much better,' Granucci said. 'Right now, everyone is freaked out. Students are freaked out and parents are freaked out because of it.' In areas of Little Saigon — which encompasses parts of Westminster, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove and Santa Ana — news of the raids has hit the community harder than ever before. There are many undocumented Vietnamese residents who call the largest ethnic enclave outside of Vietnam home. But many weren't concerned about facing deportations for years, activists say, because of a 2008 agreement between the United States and Vietnam that allowed most Vietnamese immigrants who entered the United States before 1995 — mainly refugees who fled violence following the Vietnam War — to stay in the country. An updated memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Vietnam in 2020 created a process for deporting such immigrants. 'What we're seeing is the people who are immigrants themselves that support Trump's deportation agenda only support it until it affects them,' said Tracy La, executive director of VietRISE. 'Trump isn't just going after undocumented Latino immigrants — he's going after Vietnamese, other Southeast Asians, Chinese, Indian and many other communities. That's something that I think a lot of people who supported it have been grappling with.' In Fountain Valley, a city with a large Vietnamese American population where 32% of residents identify as being foreign-born, Mayor Ted Bui hasn't seen much public pushback for the raids. Many of the Vietnamese Americans who live there value law and order, and see the raids as federal law enforcement simply carrying out their duties, he said. He feels the same, he said. Bui's family fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, first heading to France, where his grandfather was a citizen. He later came to the United States to study under a student visa. He fell in love with the graciousness he felt among Americans and went through the process to become a citizen, he said. 'What are we saying if we allow people to break the law?' Bui said. 'If we allow people to break the law, then why have laws in the first place? There would be no meaning behind it, and we'd be a country of chaos.' Three decades ago, Orange County was the birthplace of Proposition 187, a statewide ballot initiative that would have denied schooling, nonemergency healthcare and other public services to immigrants living in the country illegally. The measure, which passed 59% to 41% in 1994, would have also required teachers to tell authorities about any children they suspected of being in the country illegally. But the act never took effect after being blocked by federal judges. Anti-illegal immigration sentiment in Orange County still ran deep into the early 2000s. In Costa Mesa, then-Mayor Allan Mansoor presented a plan in 2005 to train city police officers to enforce immigration law. As the demographics of Orange County continued to change — transitioning from a reliable Republican stronghold to a politically competitive locale — immigration became a more nuanced issue even in Republican circles. In the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris won Orange County, but by a much tighter margin than either Hillary Clinton in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020, cementing the county's position as a suburban battleground. In Santa Ana, a Latino immigrant hub in the center of Orange County, immigration sweeps sparked days of protests downtown. City officials have demanded that National Guard troops at the federal courthouse leave and have been working on ways to help those swept up and their families. Santa Ana City Councilmember Thai Viet Phan, a Democrat, said even those who agree with Trump about better border protection are unnerved by raids outside Home Depots and at car washes. 'People have a lot of sympathy,' Phan said. 'People voted for Trump based on a variety of things, principally the economy. But I don't think they anticipated it would be like this.'
Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
Faith leaders bear witness as migrants make their case in immigration court
Rev. Jason Cook, a minister at Tapestry, a Unitarian Universalist congregation, wore his traditional white collar and a colorful stole resembling stained glass when he arrived at immigration court in Santa Ana last Friday. For several weeks, Cook and clergy members from a cross section of religions have been showing up at courtrooms in Orange County, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego to stand with immigrants during their deportation hearings. The practice was launched after faith leaders learned that many immigrants seeking asylum were being whisked away by federal agents after what had been billed as routine court appearances, and locked up in remote detention facilities without a chance to prepare or say goodbye to family. They have sought to use their presence to comfort migrants and lend a sense of moral authority to the proceedings. They have also taken to the courtroom benches to bear witness with silent prayer. On Friday, clergy members roamed the courthouse halls in search of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. If plainclothes agents sat outside a courtroom, it was a good indication that the migrants inside had been targeted for expedited removal once their cases were heard. Cook knows the presence of clergy won't necessarily change the outcome of the legal proceedings — though in at least one instance last month, ICE agents scattered when clergy showed up at a courthouse in San Diego. If nothing else, they hope to offer spiritual comfort, so the immigrants know they're not forgotten. 'There's a big piece of [our faith] that's about welcoming the stranger, about treating immigrants with compassion and care,' Cook said. 'We're there trying to appeal to a higher authority than ICE.' Many of the immigrants being detained at immigration court are asylum seekers who came into the country using the CBP One mobile app that the Biden administration had employed since early 2023 to create a more orderly process of applying for asylum. Migrants could use the app once they reached Mexican soil to schedule appointments with U.S. authorities at legal ports of entry to present their bids for asylum and provide biographical information for screening. President Trump shut down the CBP One app hours after taking office in January. His administration has given ICE officials the power to quickly deport tens of thousands of immigrants who were granted legal entry to the U.S. for up to two years through the CBP One program, and is waging legal battles to roll back protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who were granted temporary parole while seeking asylum. Faith leaders say the work is an extension of their services for immigrants, who often attend their churches in sizable numbers. In the past, some places of worship have opened up their doors to shelter undocumented immigrants at risk of being deported. In L.A., faith leaders have organized food drives for immigrants afraid to leave their homes, as well as vigils and peaceful marches at the downtown Los Angeles federal building. In the Inland Empire, clergy members have gone into grape fields to hand out 'Know Your Rights' cards. 'Throughout history, across the world, clergy and faith leaders and spiritual leaders have played a really catalytic role in bending the arc toward moral justice,' said Joseph Tomás Mckellar, executive director of PICO California, the largest faith-based community organizing network in the state. 'When they do it right, they leave space for others to walk the walk, as well.' On June 11, the Catholic Diocese of San Diego reached out to area clergy to ask for help in expanding efforts to accompany migrants to their hearings. Father Scott Santarosa, of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, said the letter garnered so much interest, they had to limit the number of clergy who could attend. That Friday, which also coincided with World Refugee Day, they held a Mass before arriving at immigration court. 'We weren't planning to block or get in the way or do anything to disrupt. We just planned to be present and observe and say with our presence to migrants and refugees, 'Hey, you're not alone,'' he said. One Venezuelan asylum seeker, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution if she is deported back to her home country, had a hearing scheduled in L.A. County in early June with her children. She arrived in the U.S. in December after entering through the CBP One app. The June hearing would be her first. She knew she was at risk of deportation and wondered whether to attend her hearing. She shared her fears with an area pastor, who offered to go with her. On the morning of her hearing, she arrived at court accompanied by three pastors and a translator. She felt protected, she said, when the judge granted a future court hearing and she was allowed to leave. 'Everything went well,' she said. 'I feel as if it was because of the Christian support that I had at that moment.' Cook, the Unitarian Universalist minister in Orange County, said he attends court at least twice a week. Initially, ICE agents seemed averse to confronting religious leaders, and in some cases, left the courthouse when clergy members arrived. But over time, Cook said, the agents have gotten more confrontational, telling clergy they must stay 10 feet away from agents. He said he watched one ICE agent push a clergy member against the wall after she tried to escort an immigrant out of court. They have carried on, he said, because the work feels important and aligned with their mission of faith. 'What we are is conscience on display for these folks, and if that triggers shame or reflection, that's a good thing,' Cook said outside a courtroom, not far from ICE agents. Dave Gibbons, founder of the Newsong Church in Santa Ana, said he took a break from court visits after a Central American couple he was escorting got pulled away and detained in front of their child. He broke down in tears recounting the episode for his congregation. But he was determined to return. 'We believe it's at the heart of the gospel,' Gibbons said. 'There's nothing more sacred than standing alongside those being marginalized.' Rev. Terry LePage, a community minister in Orange County, has attended immigration hearings nearly daily. She spent Friday morning handing out fliers that notified migrants headed to hearings of their rights and warning that ICE agents were present. That morning, clergy members encountered a Haitian man who had been granted temporary protected status during the Biden administration. He arrived for his asylum hearing without an attorney. He wore a crisp white shirt and carried his documents in a black case. Clergy leaders urged him to contact his family and let them know that he might be detained. But the man, who spoke Spanish, was sure he would be allowed to return home. Inside the courtroom, a Department of Homeland Security attorney argued that the man's case should be dismissed, a request the judge granted despite the migrant's pleas. Seated in the audience, Thomas Crisp, an Orange County chaplain, watched in dismay and offered a few last words of comfort: 'May God bless you.' The Haitian man made it two steps out of the courtroom before he was swarmed by federal agents and ushered down an emergency exit stairwell. This article is part of The Times' equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California's economic divide.
Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
California lawmakers struggle to find ways to hit back against Trump immigration raids
It has been nearly a month since the Trump administration launched its no-holds-barred immigration enforcement campaign in Southern California, deploying federal forces on raids that have sparked massive protests, prompted ongoing litigation in federal court and triggered a flurry of bills from outraged state lawmakers trying to fight back. And yet — at least so far — nothing seems capable of deterring the White House or forcing a change in tactics. In both Sacramento and Washington, observers said elected officials are coming up with proposals that seem to lack teeth. Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy and former senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in Los Angeles, said stopping the Trump administration from sending masked and unidentified immigration agents to snatch people off the street is proving difficult. 'They detain everybody and interrogate them all and then just figure out afterward who's unlawfully present, and that's blatantly illegal,' he said. 'We can write more laws, but there's already perfectly good laws that say this is unlawful, and they're doing it anyway.' A bill announced Monday by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra) would expand police impersonation laws and require all law enforcement, unless undercover, to wear a name tag or badge number. 'While ICE has publicly condemned impersonations, the agency's use of face coverings and lack of consistent, visible identification creates public confusion and makes it difficult for the public to distinguish between authorized law enforcement personnel and dangerous criminals,' Renée Pérez's office said in a news release. Another bill, introduced by state Sens. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley) also seeks to ban law enforcement from wearing face coverings. U.S. Representative Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) announced similar legislation Tuesday at the federal level, but the Republican majorities in both congressional houses mean it stands little chance of becoming law. The state bills have a better chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled Legislature, but they still face opposition. The Peace Officers Research Assn. of California, the largest statewide law enforcement union in the country, said banning face coverings could inadvertently put local cops — who are already required to wear badges, nameplates or badge numbers on their uniforms — at risk of losing access to personal protective equipment like face shields and respirators. 'Using local law enforcement as a punching bag to grandstand against the federal government should not be an acceptable practice from our state leaders. It is misdirected, misguided, and intolerable,' Brian R. Marvel, president of PORAC, said in a statement. Marvel said he doubted California had the authority to regulate the attire of federal officers. Arulanantham disagreed, saying that the state law could stand as long as the mask ban was neutrally applied to all law enforcement, not just federal actors. Other potential measures in the state Legislature, Arulanantham said, could expand on SB 54, the sanctuary policy that limits collaboration between state law enforcement and federal authorities on immigration enforcement. But even those protections are now under assault in the courts. The Trump administration sued the city of L.A. on Monday, arguing its sanctuary policy hampered the federal government's ability to enforce immigration law. 'Our City remains committed to standing up for our constitutional rights and the rights of our residents,' a spokesperson for the L.A. city attorney said in a statement. 'We will defend our ordinance and continue to defend policies that reflect our longstanding values as a welcoming community for all residents.' Other bills advancing through the state Legislature include measures that would restrict school officials from allowing immigration enforcement inside the nonpublic areas of schools and prohibit healthcare workers from sharing a patient's immigration status without judicial warrants. Democrats aren't alone in trying to get the White House to back off. A group of state Republican lawmakers authored a letter to Trump, arguing that widespread immigration raids are crippling the economy by taking away workers from key industries. 'Unfortunately, the recent ICE workplace raids on farms, at construction sites, and in restaurants and hotels, have led to unintended consequences that are harming the communities we represent and the businesses that employ our constituents,' the letter said. The Department of Homeland Security has insisted its agents are busy arresting 'criminal illegal aliens' and said it will continue operations despite efforts by 'rioters and politicians trying to hinder law enforcement.' 'As bad faith politicians attempt to demean and vilify our brave law enforcement, we will only double down and ramp up our enforcement actions against the worst of the worst criminals,' Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a June 26 news release. Local city and county governments, civil rights groups and even individuals could step in to sue the government and ICE on the grounds that they are infringing upon citizens' constitutional rights and harming the local economy — but no notable cases have been filed. The city of Los Angeles is posturing for a suit and has already approved legal action against ICE, according to a proposal signed by seven members of the City Council. But early struggles in the state's challenge to Trump's deployment of federal troops do not bode well for future litigation. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals swiftly overturned a lower court decision that would've limited Trump's authority, and litigation over whether the troops can be used for immigration enforcement remains ongoing. While the court battle plays out, state Democratic leaders, including Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), say they are working to fast-track some bills through the legislative process. 'The Speaker is deeply invested in protecting California's immigrant workers and families in the face of reckless ICE raids and Trump's abuses of power,' Rivas' spokesperson Nick Miller said in a statement. Some observers said that, despite the struggles legislation may face in the near term, it may be up to Republicans to change focus from Trump's agenda to things that affect their electorates, said veteran Democratic political strategist Roy Behr. 'The Republicans seem more focused on doing whatever Trump wants, but at least these votes force them to show where their loyalties really lie. And you know, maybe one day they will actually start to pay the price for these votes and ultimately feel the pressure to change their minds.'
