When pressed by NR, Bondi said the administration is supportive of measures to crack down on the apps due to the safety risk they pose for law enforcement.
President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi expressed support for cracking down on apps that track Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, leaving the door open to increased executive regulatory measures as attacks on federal immigration-enforcement officers escalate amid the White House’s deportation efforts.
Pressed by National Review on Thursday on whether the administration is supportive of any measures to crack down on, regulate, or ban apps that track ICE agents’ locations, Bondi said, “Yes, yes, yes.”
“These organizations, President Trump, are coming in, and there are apps to track our federal law enforcement officers, and it jeopardizes their lives, where they’re going to be, their location,” Bondi said during a Thursday press conference alongside Trump, senior White House officials, and law enforcement officials.
It’s unclear what a White House crackdown on the tracking apps might look like, though Justice Department officials have previously suggested that these platforms strongly “resemble obstruction of justice.” Bondi said on Thursday that the Justice Department is already coordinating with companies to prevent apps from being used to harm law enforcement officials on the job. “We’ve actually been working really well with the tech companies who have been cooperating because they don’t want our law enforcement officers to get injured,” she added. “So yes.”
Trump also expressed support for ICE officers continuing to wear masks on the job to protect their identities from doxing efforts. “I didn’t have a big view on the masks,” he said. “But I now understand why they should wear masks. I think it’s very dangerous for them not to wear masks. They can do whatever they want. I noticed some do it and some don’t, but it’s pretty dangerous. But when you look at, you know, you talk about that question.”
“I think it’s very dangerous, and I think you’re coming down on that very hard, right?” Trump asked Bondi, seated beside him, prompting her to nod in agreement.
Numerous immigration-enforcement officer tracking platforms have emerged since the start of the second Trump administration amid the White House’s deportation mission.
And news of the Justice Department’s coordination with tech companies to better monitor app usage follows a series of doxing efforts and violent attacks against ICE agents and immigration-enforcement facilities this year. According to federal law enforcement, the man who is suspected of orchestrating the attack on an ICE facility in Dallas, Texas, in September allegedly searched for apps that track ICE activity.
“The shooter used the ICE tracking apps,” acting head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Marcos Charles said in September. “Anyone who creates or distributes these apps that is designed to spot, track and locate ICE officers are well aware of the dangers that they are exposing to law enforcement.”
Congressional Democrats have praised ICE tracker apps and platforms as means to protect immigrant communities amid Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. House Oversight Committee ranking member Robert Garcia (D. Calif.) announced this week that the committee will soon unveil on its website a “master ICE tracker” to track “every single instance that we can verify that the community will send, be able to send us information on.” Bondi responded to that announcement by insisting that the Justice Department will “prosecute any person who physically assaults our agents.”