A proposal by congressional Democrats to create an online tracker of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities has drawn ire from Trump administration officials who said it puts agents at risk. Not 24 hours after announcing the tracker, Democrats changed its purpose to instead log complaints against officers.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was among those who criticized the plans by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee to launch such a platform. Her remarks came after Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., announced plans for the website during a joint press conference with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
“The Oversight Committee will be launching on their website a master ICE tracker where we can, essentially, track every single instance that we can verify that the community will send us information on,” Garcia said Monday.
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According to a release on Bass’ website, the tracker wouldn’t log the location of agents, but would compile reports of abuse, warrantless arrests and other misconduct claims. The announcement came on the heels of continuing immigration raids in Los Angeles and across the country.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the site would put information about agents “into the hands of anarchists, domestic terrorists, and cartel members.” In a post on X, she shared a debunked claim that assaults against ICE officers have increased by 1,000% this year. A recent public media investigation found assaults have risen by just 25%.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department pressured Meta to shut down a Facebook group that Chicagoans used to share information about ICE activity in their city. Bondi said in a post criticizing the group that it was used to “dox and target” agents. Also under pressure from the administration, Apple removed an app called ICEBlock, used to track ICE agents’ whereabouts, from its app store.
Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wisc., chairman of the House Administration Committee, said Wednesday the chamber won’t “maintain a website that tracks or doxes I.C.E. agents.” The committee is responsible for managing representatives’ official websites.
Democrats change platform to track misconduct
Nearly two days after Garcia’s joint press conference with Bass, the Oversight Committee’s Democratic members said the platform will not be used to track exact locations of immigration agents, but reports of misconduct.
“We’re establishing a misconduct tracker to systematically document abuse and civil rights violations by this administration — including cases where ICE has detained U.S. citizens and violated federal law,” Sara Guerrero, a committee spokesperson, said in a release. “The tracker documents unconstitutional actions after they occur — it is not a live location tool.”
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A ProPublica investigation revealed that more than 170 U.S. citizens were detained by federal immigration agents since Trump’s inauguration.
No further information has been revealed about the new platform. The Oversight Democrats’ X account shared posts from Garcia and others about inquiries into Noem and other Trump administration officials regarding immigration enforcement actions.
The tool is likely a reaction to a ProPublica investigation that revealed immigration agents detained more than 170 American citizens, at times subjecting them to abuse. The nonprofit news site found at least 50 instances where detained citizens were either never charged or had their cases dismissed. The outlet compiled reports from English and Spanish social media, lawsuits, court records and local media reports.
“Experts say that Americans appear to be getting picked up more now as a result of the government doing something that it hasn’t for decades: large-scale immigration sweeps across the country, often in communities that do not want them,” ProPublica reported.
The report spurred a congressional investigation led by Democrats into citizens being arrested and other misconduct claims. They sent letters to Noem this week requesting detailed reports about the total number of citizens the agency detained, details about their arrest and the training agents receive on making arrests.
Accountability measures on federal agents
The Democrats’ announcement is the latest measure brought up to investigate federal agents’ — namely those from DHS — actions while carrying out immigration raids.
David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, previously told Straight Arrow News that there’s no accountability for ICE internally, in the courts or from Congress. Garcia’s announcement could be a shift in patterns Bier noted in Congress of lawmakers supporting ICE’s new budget.
“There’s only one method of accountability at the moment, and that’s if state governments arrest ICE agents for violating constitutional rights,” he said.
So far, Illinois issued several crackdowns on immigration agents allegedly harming citizens or breaking state laws.
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced Wednesday that his office set up a hotline for people to submit complaints of federal agents swapping or otherwise tampering with license plates. He shared a video of an agent appearing to tell a cameraperson they swap plates regularly. The office said the action is illegal, and can result in fines, imprisonment and revocation of license plates.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, signed an executive order Thursday establishing the Illinois Accountability Commission, a body that fields reports about federal agents’ actions during the so-called Operation Midway Blitz. His office noted the necessity of a platform due to a lack of “any federal accountability for escalating federal enforcement actions.”
“We will create a detailed record, and that record will reflect reality,” Pritzker said. “Once this all ends, I believe there will be people of good faith who will review what the Commission has recorded and will demand answers and accountability.”
