Federal law enforcement carrying out immigration operations in cities across the United States face nationwide pushback from activists determined to “out” them while in public.
Since employees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal agency, began ramping up arrests of primarily criminal illegal immigrants in early 2025, the Trump administration has sent in thousands more federal agents and officers from across the departments of Homeland Security and Justice to supplement ICE.
But as ICE and other federal police have surged personnel to arrest more illegal immigrants, some private citizens and illegal immigrants have equally stepped up their fight against the feds, debuting and expanding websites that claim to track ICE and others in real time.
Federal police face serious blowback that government officials have warned could put their lives at risk. In some instances, police have resorted to swapping permanent and paper license plates on vehicles to confuse activists.
Some blue states have taken action to bar federal authorities from doing so, forcing the courts to weigh in on the matter.
Federal deployments spread
Federal immigration personnel were deployed in large numbers to Portland, Oregon, in the fall to assist ICE already there. However, federal police are being moved frequently to different cities for weekslong operations targeting specific new areas.
Since last June, ICE and Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations officers and Border Patrol agents have also sent large teams into Los Angeles; Washington; Chicago; Charlotte, North Carolina; Memphis, Tennessee; and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Gregory Bovino is the official leading the Border Patrol’s surge of agents into those cities, though agents are actively helping ICE in more than a dozen other interior cities.
It is during publicized deployments to certain cities that activists are using these websites to report suspected undercover government vehicles and federal police. In Minneapolis, the “ICE Watch” surveillance network is particularly sophisticated, regularly deploying activists to the locations where ICE officers are operating.
Federal police-tracking websites
The ICE Activity Tracker claims to be the “most reliable way to track ICE activity near you,” with roughly 300 user reports on its website. The website states that it is developing a phone app for users to get real-time notifications in selected cities.
Users can report notes and pictures of ICE vehicles, road checkpoints, and people detained by police, as well as the location and time. All reports to the site are anonymous.
The site was created by University of California at San Diego alumni who state that their goal was to “help keep communities informed, connected, and safe.”
Another website, the InterPlanetary File System, or PDX ICE/DHS License Plates, has a “community surveillance database” in and around Portland that contains a list of more than 600 license plate entries broken down by state, vehicle make and model, color, and the tag number.
It claims that every entry has at least two “verified sightings” and that it has “verifiers” who confirm that a vehicle is being used by federal immigration enforcement agents or officers.
It includes a disclaimer that “suspected license plates are strongly suspected candidates” and that the information has been carefully reviewed.
One of the activists behind the site told the Intercept that they have more than double the number of sightings as are visible to the public, but they only post the ones they can independently confirm.
A third website, called the Stop ICE Raids Alert Network, has more than half a million subscribers.
In addition, community groups on social media, as well as others on Signal and WhatsApp, share information about federal immigration enforcement operations in real time. One such group that posts frequent updates is the Immigrant Law Center of MN, where ICE and Border Patrol have been since December.
Implications for federal police
Given the actions that some of the activists have taken to identify, and even interfere with, federal police operations arresting criminal illegal immigrants in communities, officers have resorted to switching license plates on their rental vehicles.
One such video showed two federal law enforcement employees from ICE and Border Patrol taking a paper tag off the back of a vehicle while in a cemetery.
TikToker records a Border Patrol agent change the license plate of his vehicle. pic.twitter.com/VLnpQv9ajL
— ICE of TikTok (@ICEofTikTok) December 16, 2025
Last week, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias and the city of Chicago sued Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE, and CBP for illegal actions, such as swapping license plates on vehicles.
“Tampering with license plates is illegal, dangerous & will not be tolerated. This is about keeping our roads safe!” Giannoulias said in a post to X.
🚨 Lawsuit filed against Kristi Noem, ICE & CBP for unlawful activities, including license plate swapping. Tampering with license plates is illegal, dangerous & will not be tolerated. This is about keeping our roads safe! @ILAttyGeneral @chicago https://t.co/fi0OlzZKF7 pic.twitter.com/pnwvsTvJco
— Secretary Alexi Giannoulias (@ILSecOfState) January 12, 2026
Minnesota’s Driver and Vehicle Services has also warned federal police against removing and replacing license plates from vehicles. The department warned that it could confiscate those plates if the practice continues.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota has sued ICE over license plate switching on the basis that it is a violation of rights. An appeals court suspended a previous ruling that had restricted federal police from doing so.
Border Patrol and ICE arrived in Maine this week to begin enhanced targeting of criminal illegal immigrants in the northern border state.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said the state’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles had received a request from CBP ahead of the arrival of federal police, asking the state to print up confidential license plates for vehicles the agency will use while in the state.
In Maine, unmarked vehicles used primarily for law enforcement can ask the Maine secretary of state to be exempt from license plate rules. Bellows said she denied the request out of concern that CBP would use them for “lawless purposes.”
State Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, the House Republican minority leader, accused Bellows of putting police lives in danger: “The Secretary of State has decided to put their lives in danger because she thinks it’s a political win for her.”
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The National Police Association denounced elected state leaders for refusing to work with federal law enforcement. “It really is irresponsible for the State of Maine to not cooperate with ICE in order to keep these agents safe,” NPA spokeswoman Betsy Branter Smith said.
ICE and DHS did not respond to requests for comment on whether they plan to continue swapping license plates and the threat that tracking websites present to personnel.
