FIRE sues Noem and Bondi, alleging government coerced Apple and Facebook to censor ICE content

Last Wednesday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) filed a lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary (DHS) Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, alleging they coerced Facebook and Apple to censor platforms that documented federal immigration enforcement activity.

FIRE filed the lawsuit on behalf of Chicagoland native Kassandra Rosado and Mark Hodges, the founder of a tech company called Kreisau Group, in the latest of numerous instances of potential free speech violations against the Trump administration. 

Eyes Up removed by Apple

According to FIRE’s press release, Hodges created an app called Eyes Up, a video sharing platform to track government abuses of power, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity. Last October, Eyes Up and similar apps were removed from Apple’s App Store.

“Our goal is government accountability, we aren’t even doing real-time tracking,” Hodges told 404 Media in October. “I think the [Trump] administration is just embarrassed by how many incriminating videos we have.”

According to 404 Media’s report, Apple said it removed Eyes Up for violations against the company’s “objectionable content” policy and that the app circulated sensitive information about law enforcement officers. The company claimed they had received a tip from law enforcement officers who used the app.

The lawsuit alleges that Bondi used the Department of Justice to threaten Apple to remove Eyes Up and other ICE-related apps. The suit contends that this action suppressed protected free speech rights under the First Amendment.

“Bondi, Noem, and their subordinates at the DOJ and DHS made a series of threats of prosecution toward anyone remotely associated with disfavored ICE-related apps from its App Store, and Apple immediately complied, including by removing Kreisau Group’s Eyes Up app,” the FIRE complaint says. “Apple reasonably understood Bondi and Noem’s course of conduct to convey a threat of adverse government action against Apple in order to suppress Kreisau Group’s speech. Such coercion of a third party to suppress protected speech violates the First Amendment.”

On Oct. 2, 2025, Bondi told Fox Business that the DOJ contacted Apple “demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store – and Apple did so.” ICEBlock is a similar app to Eyes Up, but specifically focuses on documenting ICE, while Eyes Up has a broader focus on all instances of government overreach.

Rosado’s Facebook page taken down

That same month, Rosado’s Facebook page, ICE Sightings-Chicagoland, was removed by Facebook’s parent company Meta. Rosado, who runs a jewelry business, says she created the page in January 2025 to assist other small business owners and friends to share information about ICE raids in Chicago.

Last September, the page grew to nearly 76,000 followers as the Trump administration launched Operation Midway Blitz in the city. The page was flagged by conservative activist Laura Loomer on Oct. 12, 2025, who baselessly claimed that ICE tracking accounts are “getting people killed.” Loomer tagged Noem and Bondi’s X accounts in her post.

Two days later, Bondi announced on X that Rosado’s page had been removed after the DOJ reached out to Facebook. Without evidence, Bondi contended that Rosado’s group was being used to “dox and target ICE agents in Chicago.”

Today following outreach from @thejusticedept, Facebook removed a large group page that was being used to dox and target @ICEgov agents in Chicago.

The wave of violence against ICE has been driven by online apps and social media campaigns designed to put ICE officers at risk…

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) October 14, 2025

According to Rosado, Facebook told her they disabled her group because it went against community standards multiple times. Meta’s policy says they will disable a group only if admin (in this case, Rosado) or a moderator creates or approves content from other members that violates the company’s community standards.

Meta spokesperson Francis Brennan told the Chicago Sun-Times last October that Rosado’s group violated the company’s policy against coordinated harm, which bans “outing the undercover status of law enforcement, military, or security personnel if the content contains the agent’s name, their face or badge and any of the following: The agent’s law enforcement organization, the agent’s law enforcement operation [or] explicit mentions of their undercover status.”

FIRE’s lawsuit contends that out of tens of thousands of posts and comments created in Rosado’s Facebook group through last October, company moderators removed just five of them for violating guidelines.

“Even as to these five posts, Facebook advised Rosado that they were “participant violations” that ‘don’t hurt your group,’” the lawsuit says. “Facebook further explained: ‘Groups aren’t penalized when members or visitors break the rules without admin approval.’”

Heartland Signal reached out to Meta to ask multiple questions about Rosado’s group being removed, including evidence of Rosado or a moderator creating or approving violating content and if the DOJ contacted the company to request the removal. Meta has not responded.

“I care about my community, and I just want to make sure everyone is staying safe,” Rosado said. “ICE activities are causing fear in the small business community, and we needed a place to share information in real time. By censoring our group, the government continues to erode our trust. They silenced not only my voice, but the voices of nearly 100,000 other community members.”

FIRE contends that the First Amendment protects the right to discuss, record and criticize the actions of law enforcement in public, citing the 1987 Supreme Court decision Houston v. Hill: “to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”

“As U.S. citizens, we have the right to keep each other informed about what our government officials are doing and how they’re doing it,” Hodges said. “Government transparency and accountability are fundamental in a free society.”

The DOJ and DHS did not respond to Heartland Signal’s requests to comment for this story.  

ICE endangerment claims

For months, Republicans and conservative media outlets have argued that ICE agents are in serious danger of assault or death if their identities are not preserved. The administration’s claim that assaults on ICE officers increased by more than 1,000% last year was proven demonstrably false by court records.

According to the DHS’s own website, no ICE agents were killed in 2025. There was one reported on-duty death of a Customs and Border patrol agent in 2025, which happened after a German national was pulled over during a traffic stop on Jan. 23.

Meanwhile, 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, making it the deadliest year since 2004 for ICE detention. In 2026 alone, six more people have died in custody, and two American citizens in Minnesota were shot and killed by ICE agents. Trump administration officials have routinely lied about the shootings and other incidents while vehemently defending the agents’ actions before investigations take place.