Washington DC - Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are being sued by the developer of an iPhone app that tracks the movements of ICE.

Joshua Aaron, the creator and developer of the ICEBlock app, is suing Bondi and Noem on First Amendment grounds after they had his application removed from the Apple App Store.

ICEBlock tracks immigration officers across the US by allowing people to anonymously report sightings, amid widespread accusations of civil rights abuses and failures to follow the law.

Apple was forced to take it off its app store after being pressured by the Department of Justice in October, not long after CNN reported on it.

Bondi has boasted about directly intervening, saying in October: "We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store, and Apple did so."

Aaron's legal team argue that many other apps crowdsource police information, an activity which is protected by a Supreme Court precedent.

"ICEBlock is no different from crowdsourcing speed traps, which every notable mapping application, including Apple's own Maps app, implements as part of its core services," reads a statement published on the ICEBlock website.

"This is protected speech under the first amendment of the United States Constitution," the statement says. "We will not be deterred. We will not stop."