The ICEBlock app is a game-changer. Allowing users to report ICE activity on a crowdsourced and anonymous—though this cannot be fully guaranteed—platform, the app is like Waze but for immigration enforcement.

According to its creator Joshua Aaron, ICEBlock stores no personal data, offers no way to trace users, and deletes sightings after 4 hours. It’s iOS-only for now, but it delivers real-time alerts for ICE activity within a 5-mile radius—increasingly crucial in a country where ICE agents now routinely violate civil liberties and due process.

This is the kind of tool that terrifies authoritarians. And as Apple blogger John Gruber notes, the Trump administration will almost certainly come after it.

Unfortunately, Apple has a poor track record in moments like this. When the Chinese Communist Party demanded the takedown of a pro-democracy app in Hong Kong, Apple caved. That precedent—combined with recent capitulations from U.S. media companies and even Columbia University—should set off alarms.

If any tech company has the financial and legal muscle to defend its users’ First Amendment rights, it’s Apple. But this will be a test.

Still, an iOS-only tool leaves out the majority of impacted users. Immigrant communities overwhelmingly use Android phones—for obvious financial reasons. The immigrant-focused publication Saber es Poder surveyed its users in 2022 and found that 72% use Android, while just 27% use iPhones. 

So if we’re serious about defending civil rights in immigrant communities, we need an Android version. Though the developers of ICEBlock explain why Android’s inadequate privacy protections prevent them from expanding for now. 

Another option would be a web-based tool, which would entirely circumvent any app store crackdown. In this era of Trumpist authoritarianism and corporate complicity, it’s clear we can’t rely on gatekeepers.

Tools like ICEBlock are vital resistance infrastructure. The next battle may not be fought in the courts, but in the app stores.