The popular personal communication app, WhatsApp, is being used by illegal immigrants in the United States to avoid ICE agents. The app is used by about 3 billion people around the globe. As the app's popularity continues to surge, law enforcement departments, especially ICE, are finding their efforts to capture wanted illegal immigrants thwarted by people using the communications links the app provides to stay hidden.
Brazilian immigrants in several states are saying WhatsApp is key to their remaining cloaked from the long arm of the law, as reported by Breitbart. Brazilians in Massachusetts and Florida say they have community sentries who track the movements of ICE agents and report to the people who are trying to hide. Some of the adults who are in hiding say their greatest fear of being captured is that they'll be taken away while their children might be left behind with no one to care for them. Accurate numbers of how many Brazilian immigrants are living illegally in the U.S. are hard to come by. The most recent government statistics are from 2022 and show about 230,000 at that time. The Office of Homeland Security Statistics has no data later than that publicly available.
Not everyone is convinced that an app will keep people all that safe from immigration enforcement. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., conducted a webinar on her Facebook page last week and promoted simply not opening doors to immigration agents as an easy way to stay safe from deportation.