404 Media

2025-11-13 14:06:56

Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort

Google is hosting a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, and tell local cops whether to contact ICE about the person, while simultaneously removing apps designed to warn local communities about the presence of ICE officials. ICE-spotting app developers tell 404 Media the decision to host CBP’s new app, and Google’s description of ICE officials as a vulnerable group in need of protection, shows that Google has made a choice on which side to support during the Trump administration’s violent mass deportation effort.

Google removed certain apps used to report sightings of ICE officials, and “then they immediately turned around and approved an app that helps the government unconstitutionally target an actual vulnerable group. That's inexcusable,” Mark, the creator of Eyes Up, an app that aims to preserve and map evidence of ICE abuses, said. 404 Media only used the creator’s first name to protect them from retaliation. Their app is currently available on the Google Play Store, but Apple removed it from the App Store.

“Google wanted to ‘not be evil’ back in the day. Well, they're evil now,” Mark added.

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Do you know anything else about Google's decision? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

The CBP app, called Mobile Identify and launched last week, is for local and state law enforcement agencies that are part of an ICE program that grants them certain immigration-related powers. The 287(g) Task Force Model (TFM) program allows those local officers to make immigration arrests during routine police enforcement, and “essentially turns police officers into ICE agents,” according to the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU). At the time of writing, ICE has TFM agreements with 596 agencies in 34 states, according to ICE’s website.

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Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from Bondi DOJ

Apple dropped an ICE tracking app from its online store Thursday in response to the Department of Justice raising concerns that the app put law enforcement officers’ safety at risk.

^{Ashley Oliver (Fox Business)}

404 Media

2025-10-29 14:40:03

ICE and CBP Agents Are Scanning Peoples’ Faces on the Street To Verify Citizenship

“You don’t got no ID?” a Border Patrol agent in a baseball cap, sunglasses, and neck gaiter asks a kid on a bike. The officer and three others had just stopped the two young men on their bikes during the day in what a video documenting the incident says is Chicago. One of the boys is filming the encounter on his phone. He says in the video he was born here, meaning he would be an American citizen.

When the boy says he doesn’t have ID on him, the Border Patrol officer has an alternative. He calls over to one of the other officers, “can you do facial?” The second officer then approaches the boy, gets him to turn around to face the sun, and points his own phone camera directly at him, hovering it over the boy’s face for a couple seconds. The officer then looks at his phone’s screen and asks for the boy to verify his name. The video stops.

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Do you have any more videos of ICE or CBP using facial recognition? Do you work at those agencies or know more about Mobile Fortify? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

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ICE and CBP Agents Are Scanning Peoples’ Faces on the Street To Verify Citizenship

^{Joseph Cox (404 Media)}