At this summer's HOPE conference, Joshua Aaron spoke about ICEBlock, his iPhone app that allows users to anonymously report ICE sightings within a 5 mile radius, and to get notifications when others report ICE sightings near them. You can see the full talk, and the lively/infuriating Q&A, here,
An important part of the effort is culture and esthetics. “ICE SUCKS DONKEY BALLS AND YOU SHOULD AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE INFESTED RAT FASCISTS THEY ARE” is a message worth amplifying, even if the tool to actually do the avoidance is flawed.
Yes, it’s theater. But theater is praxis too.
If your theater uses vulnerable immigrants as props, it’s bad praxis.
Look, this app purports to actually protect undocumented immigrants by warning them where ICE is active, right? Except it’s so full of false positives and MAGA trolling that it’s useless for that purpose. So an immigrant downloads this app believing it works and then they spend every day in hiding because it claims ICE is everywhere all the time.
And this actually helps the Trump administration, because they want people to think ICE is everywhere all the time, they want undocumented immigrants to be afraid to leave their homes, so they’ll self-deport.
But hey, it lets white liberal slacktivists shitpost every time they see two guys in masks or a vehicle with government license plates, and they get to think “I’m helping!”, and that’s what’s really important here, right?
I got to the point with this article where the app developer said community organizers told him his app wouldn’t help immigrants, so he ignored them and did it anyway, and just wanted to throw my phone against the wall. The users of this app are actively making things worse for the vulnerable population they’re supposedly trying to help. It’s liberal virtue signaling at its worst.