Facebook removes Chicago-area page dedicated to ICE sightings
A Facebook group that shared information about sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the Chicago area was removed by Meta following pressure from the Justice Department, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The ICE Sighting-Chicagoland Facebook page had more than 70,000 members in recent weeks as the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” intensified in Chicago and its suburbs. With federal agents make arrests in unmarked vehicles and appearing everywhere from schools to shopping malls, rapid response networks have formed to record and disrupt the raids.
The Department of Homeland Security announcement As of October 1, it had made 800 arrests in the area since the mission began in early September.
“The wave of violence against ICE has been fueled by online apps and social media campaigns designed to put ICE agents in danger simply for doing their jobs,” Bondi said on X Tuesday morning. “The Department of Justice will continue to engage technology companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement. »
Meta spokesperson Francis Brennan said the page violated its harm coordination policies. The policy states that content “revealing the undercover status of law enforcement, military or security personnel if the content contains the agent’s name, face or badge” will be removed.
Brennan joined Meta as public affairs manager for strategic response in January and served as director of strategic response for Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, according to Policy.
The ban on the page comes as federal agents deployed tear gas on a crowd of protesters in the East Side neighborhood on Tuesday after a Border Patrol truck was involved in a crash.
Earlier this month, Bondi and the Justice Department pressured Apple to remove the ICEBlock app from the App Store.
“We are incredibly disappointed by Apple’s actions. Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right decision,” the app’s creators said. wrote after removal.
“Apple claimed to have received information from law enforcement that ICEBlock was used to harm law enforcement officers. This is demonstrably false. ICEBlock is no different from crowdsourced speed cameras, which all notable mapping apps, including Apple’s Maps app, implement as part of their core services. This is speech protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
Gregory Royal Pratt of the Chicago Tribune contributed.
