US Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland sent Apple a letter on Monday saying the company has no evidence to support claims that apps tracking Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity raised safety concerns, CNN reported.
Raskin, a Democrat, accused Apple of using immigrant deaths unconnected to the apps to justify censoring Americans who have the right to record ICE activity. It appears that Apple is “working with the government to violate its customers’ First Amendment rights to record and report on the activities of their own government,” he wrote, according to CNN.
Apple removed ICEBlock and other ICE-tracking apps from its App Store after Trump administration officials said the apps endangered officers. Raskin had pressed the company for months, and Apple told him in July that the apps were removed after a fatal shooting that left two detainees dead at a Dallas ICE office, CNN reported. Apple had previously defended the removals to Congress.
The gunman in that case, Joshua Jahn, fired indiscriminately into the ICE facility before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to an earlier CNN report. He left notes saying he “hoped his actions would give ICE agents real terror of being gunned down.”
Nancy Larson, the US attorney for the Northern District of Texas, noted at the time the “tragic irony” that a detainee was killed in the attack, CNN reported. The Department of Homeland Security and FBI Director Kash Patel have since said the incident showed agents were being targeted, and DHS frequently cites an internal statistic from October 2025 claiming ICE officers face an 8,000 percent increase in death threats. The agency will not release data for independent verification.
Patel has also said the Texas gunman “searched for apps that tracked ICE agents’ locations.” Raskin told Apple there is “no evidence” the shooter used ICE-tracking apps and that, even if he had, “he did not need a tracking app to locate the fixed position of a government building.” The gunman “is reported to have found the address using an app that comes standard on Apple devices,” the letter said.