Photo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
The United States government has agreed to permanently stop pressuring Facebook and Apple to suppress two online platforms that report Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity, settling a free-speech lawsuit that accused federal officials of coercing the tech companies into censorship.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, known as FIRE, said on Thursday that the agreement resolves its lawsuit over a Facebook group tracking ICE operations in Chicago and an app that lets users share videos of ICE enforcement. A federal judge has now made permanent an earlier court order barring the government from leaning on the two companies.
What the court order says
Under the agreement, the government agreed to make permanent the preliminary injunction a court had previously entered in favour of the plaintiffs. An order by US District Judge Jorge Alonso of the Northern District of Illinois says the federal government “shall take no actions, formal or informal, to demand or pressure” Facebook and Apple to suppress the “ICE Sightings – Chicagoland” Facebook group and the Eyes Up app.
FIRE sued the Justice and Homeland Security departments in February on behalf of the two Americans behind the platforms: Kae Rosado, who created the Chicago Facebook group, and Mark Hodges, who built the Eyes Up app. The lawsuit named then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
The suit alleged that Facebook disabled Rosado’s group after demands by federal officials, and that Apple removed Hodges’ app from its store under government pressure — actions FIRE said violated the pair’s First Amendment rights. In two earlier opinions in the case, the court held there was “no dispute that Plaintiffs allege a First Amendment violation” and that the evidence showed they were likely to succeed on their claim that officials violated their rights by coercing Facebook and Apple.
Two platforms built to watch ICE
Rosado set up “ICE Sightings – Chicagoland” so fellow small business owners, friends and family could share information about ICE operations in the Chicago area. Hodges created Eyes Up as an app for sharing videos of ICE operations, and he also runs a group that aims to preserve evidence of government abuses of power.
FIRE argued that documenting and criticising law enforcement is protected by the First Amendment, and that it is unconstitutional for public officials to pressure private companies into censoring speech on the government’s behalf. The settlement means the government is now barred by court order from resuming that pressure against either platform.
A test case for the deportation crackdown
The case landed at the centre of one of the most contested parts of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. ICE has been the public face of the administration’s deportation drive, and rights groups have accused the agency of violating free-speech and due-process rights in its enforcement operations.
Online tools that track ICE movements have spread in cities across the country as residents try to warn neighbours about raids, and the government has repeatedly clashed with the platforms hosting them. The Chicago case was among the first to test in court whether officials could use their leverage over tech companies to shut those tools down.
The settlement does not resolve the wider debate over ICE enforcement itself. But it sets a clear legal marker: the government cannot use informal pressure on Facebook and Apple to silence Americans who report what federal agents are doing in their own neighbourhoods.
Sources: Reuters; Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)