Federal officials agreed on Thursday, November 13, 2026, to permanently end their censorship of online platforms created by two Midwesterners reporting on public Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
The court order prevents officials from further censoring Mark Hodges and Kae Rosado. It stems from a February lawsuit filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression against then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
“I’m glad the government agreed to stop targeting my speech, but it shouldn’t take a lawsuit to get the government to respect our constitutional rights,” said Mark Hodges, creator of Eyes Up, an app for sharing videos of ICE operations that was targeted by government censorship.
“People have a right to know what their government is doing,” Hodges told the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “I hope that thanks to this lawsuit, others can share what they see and hear without facing this kind of censorship.”
Rosado, who has her own jewelry business, started a Facebook group in January 2025 after witnessing community fear regarding the impact of ICE raids on daily life in Chicago. The group remained small until September 2025, when ICE launched an enforcement surge in Chicago dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.”
Membership surged to nearly 100,000 users as Chicagoans faced growing fears of injury or arrest. The platform, named “ICE Sightings – Chicagoland,” enabled small business owners, friends, and family to share information about local enforcement operations.
“I created this group to inform and protect my community, not knowing that doing so would lead government officials to try to silence me,” said Rosado.
“But the Constitution protects more than just the voices in power,” Rosado told the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “This fight was about everyone’s right to speak freely without fear of government retaliation.”
The federal government previously pressured Facebook to take down Rosado’s group and Apple to remove Hodges’s Eyes Up app from its app store. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois held in two prior opinions that there was no dispute plaintiffs alleged a First Amendment violation through coercion of private companies.
The First Amendment protects the right to discuss, record, and criticize what law enforcement does in public. The Supreme Court stated in Houston v. Hill that opposing or challenging police action without risking arrest distinguishes a free nation from a police state.
Federal officials argued that tracking ICE agents puts officers at risk. However, courts maintain that the First Amendment protects speech concerning public activities of law enforcement officers.
“The First Amendment protects our right to share truthful information about our government and its activities,” said Colin McDonell, Senior Attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
“This is not a partisan issue, and FIRE is here to challenge any government actors who would seek to stifle our freedom of speech,” McDonell told the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
Under the agreement resolving the case, the government made permanent the preliminary injunction previously entered in favor of Hodges and Rosado. Hodges runs the Kreisau Group, which preserves evidence of governmental abuses of power, while his Eyes Up app arranges user-uploaded videos on a map after manual moderation.
“I refused to remain silent about the harm facing my community, and I hope this victory reminds others that their voices matter and no government official stands above the Constitution,” said Rosado.
