Rather than endangering ICE officers, Aaron argued that ICEBlock helps protect communities from dangerous ICE activity, such as tear gas and pepper spray, or arrests of US citizens and immigrants due to alleged racial profiling. Their complaint states that children have been harmed, documenting ICE agents “arresting parents and leaving young children alone” and even once “driving the arrestee’s car away from the arrest scene while the arrestee’s young child was still strapped into a car seat.”
Aron’s main fear behind the development of the app was that increased ICE enforcement – including arbitrary orders to make up to 75 arrests a day – “exposes immigrants and citizens alike to violence and massive violations of their civil liberties” from which ICEBlock could protect them.
“These actions have resulted in widespread and well-documented civil rights violations against citizens, legal residents, and undocumented immigrants, raising serious concerns among the public, elected officials, and members of the federal courts,” Aaron’s complaint states.
They “have led some people – regardless of immigration or citizenship status – to avoid areas of federal immigration enforcement activities altogether” and “resulted in situations in which members of the public may wish, when enforcement activity is visible in public places, to observe, record, or legally protest such activity.”
In 2001, Aaron worked for Apple as one of the first Mac Geniuses in its Apple Stores. These days, he uses his self-taught developer skills by creating apps aimed at doing social good and helping communities.
Emphasizing that he was raised in a Jewish household, where he heard stories from Holocaust survivors that left an indelible mark, Aron said that the ICEBlock app represents his “commitment to use my abilities to advocate for the protection of civil liberties.” Aron told 404 Media that without an injunction, he is worried that he and other like-minded app makers will remain targets of the Trump administration as part of a massive deportation plan through ongoing ICE raids across the US.
“More broadly, the objective [of the lawsuit] Aaron said, “Government officials are being held accountable for using their authority to silence legitimate expression and intimidate the creators of technology they dislike. This case is about ensuring that public officials cannot circumvent the Constitution by coercing private companies or threatening individuals because they disagree with the message or the device being created.”
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