A woman who was fired as an auditor for the US government because of an immigration police-tracking app her husband created says she is weighing her legal options.
The Department of Justice says Carolyn Feinstein has a “sizeable interest” in the company which developed the ICEBlock app, ALL U Chart. Trump administration officials have taken issue with the app, which has almost one million downloads and allows users to report sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.
“ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture while endangering the lives of ICE officers by disclosing their location,” a Justice Department representative told The National. “This DoJ will not tolerate threats against law enforcement or law enforcement officers.”
Ms Feinstein, who worked from the DoJ's Austin, Texas office as a forensic auditor, was fired from her job at the weekend. She told The National that while she owns a portion of All U Chart, her husband, Joshua Aaron, is the majority owner. She said she is listed as a stakeholder so she could wind down the company in the event something were to happen to her husband.
“I had no part in developing the app, coding the app, or marketing the app in any way,” she said. “My only relation to it is that I'm married to the creator.”
She said she is exploring potential legal options to challenge her dismissal, and looking for new career opportunities. “There's going to be bigger and better things out there,” she said.
Mr Aaron said his company, All U Chart, is currently working on a healthcare app unrelated to the ICEBlock app that has become the source of ire in the Trump administration. Since its release this year, the app has gained popularity as President Donald Trump approved significant funding increases for ICE, whose mandate includes detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants.
Masked ICE agents have swept up thousands of migrants in a nationwide dragnet that has sometimes snared US citizens and green card holders. Current and former detainees have said they were kept in dismal conditions in ICE custody, charges the agency denies.
“When I saw what was happening in this country I knew I had to do something to fight back,” said Mr Aaron, who lives in Texas, a state with a large undocumented immigrant population. Mr Aaron, who is Jewish, told The National in an interview last week that he had decided to create the app after meeting Holocaust survivors and learning about Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany.
The app aims to alert users to the presence of ICE officials within an 8km radius. It is powered by crowdsourced data and relies on people reporting where ICE agents are. ICEBlock also allows users to describe the vehicles ICE agents are using and the clothes they are wearing. When a sighting is reported, push notifications are sent to nearby users.
It is only available for iPhone. According to Mr Aaron, the privacy settings he deems necessary for ICEBlock are not yet possible on Android devices. US Attorney General Pam Bondi has suggested that the app should be considered illegal, and recently told Fox News that the Justice Department was “looking into” the developer, Mr Aaron.
Mr Aaron acknowledges criticism that the software has the potential to be misused, as the Trump administration has claimed violence against ICE agents is on the rise.
“Please note that the use of this app is for information and notification purposes only,” reads a disclaimer appearing throughout ICEBlock, with an added warning that the app should not be used “for the purposes of inciting violence or interfering with law enforcement”. Mr Aaron says ICEBlock is strictly designed to inform, and not to obstruct.
Laura Loomer, a far-right activist well known for her controversial and xenophobic comments, posted information about his wife on X last week. “I reviewed Carolyn’s LinkedIn page, and she has been working for the DOJ since January 2021 when Joe Biden assumed office,” said Ms Loomer's post.
Ms Loomer then passed along information about Ms Feinstein to White House border tsar Tom Homan, who told the right-wing news outlet Newsmax that he flagged the information to US Attorney General Pam Bondi.
