In a week marked by viral outrage and mounting political tensions, the debate over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reached a fever pitch, catalyzed by a shocking incident and a wave of digital activism. As the nation grapples with questions of accountability, transparency, and the limits of federal power, new evidence-sharing initiatives and public pressure are testing the boundaries of what oversight truly means in America.
The latest flashpoint came on October 24, 2025, when a video began circulating online showing an ICE agent pointing a gun at a pregnant woman who was recording an arrest from her car. According to reporting by 2paragraphs News, the woman remained calm in the face of danger, asking the officer, “Are you gonna shoot a pregnant woman?” Undeterred by the threat, she continued to record, even as the agent aimed his firearm at her. The video quickly went viral, igniting widespread condemnation and fresh calls for accountability within ICE.
Social media erupted with fury. One user commented, “ICE needs far less power on our streets. If you are afraid of being videoed, you are doing something wrong.” Others drew parallels between the agent’s response—blaming the woman for “provoking” him—and the manipulative tactics of abusers. “You made me do that is the typical response of an abuser, a wife-beater. Someone needs to check on his family,” another user wrote. The consensus online was clear: there was no justification for the officer’s aggressive response, and the public demanded answers.
Yet not everyone agreed. A small but vocal group of Trump supporters defended the agent, arguing the woman put herself—and her unborn child—in harm’s way by recording the scene. “A ‘pregnant woman’ decides to be a ‘journalist’ in a dangerous situation, then complains when she gets a gun pulled on her? Real pregnant women are focused on having a baby, not putting themselves and the baby in harm’s way,” one commenter argued. Others criticized her for using a phone while driving, calling her actions “illegal and reckless.”
This incident is just the latest in a string of controversies that have dogged ICE in recent years. Critics point to a pattern of intimidation and excessive force, particularly since President Donald Trump expanded the agency’s mandate and reach, especially in Democrat-led cities. Despite mounting criticism and public protests, Trump has doubled down on his commitment to ICE, insisting that national troops and federal agents will continue to be deployed to major U.S. cities. As reported by 2paragraphs News, many fear that such policies are eroding public trust and leaving ordinary citizens vulnerable to overreach.
Against this backdrop, a new front in the battle for transparency and accountability has emerged—this time, driven by digital activists and state officials. Dominick Skinner, the Irish-born, Amsterdam-based creator of the ICE List, confirmed this week that his network of over 200 mostly American volunteers has begun sharing photographic evidence and videos with New York Attorney General Letitia James via a newly created state portal. Similar evidence is also being sent to Chicago’s dedicated email for documenting license plate tampering and officer misuse.
“Well, currently, NY attorney general has released a portal to share ICE photos and videos. Chicago have an email to collect abuses related to license plate tampering and misuse. I have already tasked some volunteers with allocating data to be sent to each, and we’ve already added the internal step of passing relevant information onto them immediately,” Skinner told Migrant Insider. The move marks a significant shift—not just for the crowdsourced watchdog group, but for the broader machinery of government accountability, as state officials and Congress scramble to respond to mounting reports of abuse and misconduct by federal agents.
But Skinner’s faith in the system is tempered by skepticism. When asked if he believed Letitia James would be able to hold offending agents accountable, he replied, “No. And not through any fault of her own. I think the regime will attempt to subvert any attempt to hold them accountable. I run under the impression that the USA is now a dictatorship, and they will simply push back on any attempts. However, I want this to work. If this becomes an easier route to actually hold them to account, it’s literally a dream come true.”
Operating from Europe, Skinner enjoys a degree of protection from U.S. jurisdiction. “Yes, rather humorously, the legislation being pushed cannot affect me without a U.S. invasion and occupation of the Netherlands, not to give them ideas,” he quipped. But his motivation runs deeper than legal immunity. As a survivor of homelessness in Ireland, Skinner’s personal journey is inseparable from his mission: “We survived because the world accepted us as migrants. I believe in frictionless borders, equal economic opportunity, and that in a fair world migration wouldn’t even be an issue.”
The ICE List’s strategy—what Skinner calls “distributed visibility”—relies on grassroots documentation, real-time uploads, and careful curation, now followed by submission to official oversight channels as they appear. According to Migrant Insider, this model is gaining traction as Congress and state officials look for new ways to bring sunlight to what Skinner calls the “black box of federal immigration enforcement.”
Meanwhile, in Washington, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, announced the formation of a “master ICE Tracker,” a federal digital ledger designed to expose “unconstitutional detentions and civil-rights violations.” The tracker will serve as a searchable database for verified reports from the public, lawyers, and field offices—an infrastructure to keep “receipts” on federal misconduct.
But resistance is fierce. Republicans, led by Oversight Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), have vowed to block any official “ICE tracker dot gov” website, with the possibility of intervention from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has gone so far as to name Skinner in a Senate press release, blaming him for the “Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act” (SB 1952), which would criminalize publishing agents’ names. Skinner fired back, “The fact that a sitting Senator has taken the time to try to turn me into the villain of this story only proves the point. They want to criminalize transparency.”
The digital feud has even reached Silicon Valley. Apple recently removed the DeICER app—a civic evidence tool logging ICE activity—from its App Store, citing anti-hate-speech guidelines. The app, which had 30,000 users before takedown, was designed by Rafael Concepcion, a former Syracuse journalism professor. “Recording public officials is not harassment. It is democracy,” Concepcion told Migrant Insider. He’s now offering his “Windbreaker” infrastructure to Congress for the federal tracker, emphasizing privacy-first design and cross-state partnerships.
With ICE’s favorability at historic lows—recent Pew polling shows the agency nearly as unpopular as the IRS—the stakes for transparency and reform have never been higher. Whether these digital evidence shares and new oversight tools will break through the regime’s wall of secrecy, or simply provoke new countermeasures, remains to be seen. For activists like Skinner, the path forward is clear: “Generosity is what I believe can change the world.”
As the public’s demand for answers grows louder, the nation finds itself at a crossroads—caught between digital activism, state and federal oversight, and the ever-present specter of unchecked power. The coming months will reveal whether accountability is a dream deferred or a new American reality.
