On a weekday morning in May, the Hack Latino app issued an alert to its users: There were five Immigration and Customs Enforcement patrol vehicles on a certain avenue in Grand Island, Nebraska. “Watch out!” the message urged in Spanish.

Hack Latino is an artificial intelligence-powered app for Latinos in the U.S., made by the Georgia-based entrepreneur Adrian Lozano Jr. It offers restaurant suggestions and consular information to more than 30,000 users, along with a key feature to keep them safe: a map of ICE sightings, launched in April.

It is one of a slew of mobile platforms created by nonprofit organizations, independent developers, and foreign governments, which have cropped up amid a surge in immigration raids in the U.S. The Donald Trump administration has vowed to enact mass deportations from the U.S., home to some 13.7 million undocumented individuals. The digital tools provide services such as “Know Your Rights” guides, legal information, and emergency resources to help the community prepare for potential encounters with immigration authorities.

Apps such as Hack Latino or digital tools like Stop ICE Alerts function much like the community patrols of the 1990s, when neighbors and activists in neighborhoods with a large Hispanic presence would warn others about the arrival of authorities — except these apps have the added benefit of real-time technology, said Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that supports migrants and refugees.

“When raids are detected, a notice is [first] posted on Facebook, a Live video is started, or alerts are shared in WhatsApp or Signal groups,” Rios told Rest of World. These alerts, often posted on personal social media accounts, are then uploaded to apps that “provide updates on community movements, or notify about policy changes that could impact those living in these neighborhoods.”

Governments are also turning to technology to inform and support their citizens in the U.S. In March, the Guatemalan government released ConsulApp Guate, an app that digitized and streamlined access to consular services, and allows them to respond faster to emergencies, like ICE arrests. Mexicans remain the largest group of undocumented migrants in the U.S. at nearly 5 million as of 2022, with Guatemalans accounting for around 750,000.

“In some states, it’s common practice to detain someone and transfer them to another state. From there, communication becomes more difficult,” Antonio Escobedo, Guatemala’s deputy minister for foreign affairs, told Rest of World.

Faster response to assist detained migrants can be key to intervening before a deportation is finalized, whether by helping someone file an appeal or locating a detainee’s children who have been left alone at home, Escobedo said. Without this quick access to information, “we might not learn about the situation until the person is already standing before an authority in Guatemala.” 

Neither the U.S. Department of Homeland Security nor U.S. Customs and Border Protection responded to questions from Rest of World regarding deportation procedures.

In the first 50 days of President Trump’s administration, ICE reported more than 32,000 enforcement arrests — almost as many as in all of 2024. Deportation flights jumped to 190 in May, up from 109 in January, according to public data collected by Tom Cartwright, an immigration advocate who tracks ICE flights. Amid this surge, there are growing concerns over migrant rights violations and their access to due process.

B.R., a migrant from Guatemala, arrived in Tijuana in November with the aim of requesting asylum in the U.S. But he was unable to register on U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s CBP Home app, and has been trapped in the Mexican border city since then. B.R., whose name is being withheld to protect him from immigration-related risks, has been using Hack Latino to stay informed about immigration raids in the U.S, where his family lives.

The app functions similarly to Waze, which provides live traffic updates. “It sends you a message saying there’s a Border Patrol ahead and that you need to turn back. Most migrants are protecting themselves with it,” B.R. told Rest of World.

The Mexican government launched an app, ConsulApp Contigo, in January. It has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. It is described on the Google Play store as a tool to make consular services more accessible and bring them “closer to people in situations of migratory vulnerability, strengthening their protection against possible mass deportations and guaranteeing their integrity.”

Detainees often lose access to their phones during an arrest, Mexican officials with knowledge of the app’s usage told Rest of World. Storing emergency contacts in the app in advance allows consulates to quickly reach family members in the event of an arrest, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

An older app, Know Your Rights 4 Immigrants, was created in 2017 by the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium (Nakasec) and volunteer Google developers. It was designed to inform users of their constitutional rights during encounters with law enforcement. The app would read out a person’s rights in English to the detaining officer and in one of five languages to the user.

Since the app’s relaunch earlier this year, it has been downloaded more than 28,000 times and is available in over 20 languages. But as its reach grows, so does the pressure on those behind it.

“We are all feeling a little worried [about] providing any kind of resource to the immigrant community,” Esmeralda Ledezma, communications associate at Woori Juntos, a Texas-based Nakasec affiliate that works with Asian migrants, told Rest of World. 

State and national prosecutors have increasingly targeted organizations in Texas, according to Ledezma. “State legislators have ramped up anti-immigrant sentiment by filing and passing new laws to make helping immigrants illegal, with charges like smuggling, aiding and abetting, and more,” she said. The organization is watching these bills closely, she added.

Privacy and security have become central design concerns for most migrant-focused apps, precisely to avoid such legal risks. Some organizations have pulled their apps as a precautionary measure.

Notifica, created by United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led network in the U.S., was taken offline in February after the organization said it could no longer guarantee that users’ communications with their networks would remain secure, given the evolving regulations and political uncertainty.

RefAid is an app for migrants used in 41 countries by over 7,500 nonprofits, aid groups, and government agencies. It remains active but has significantly scaled back its U.S. operations recently. The app, launched in 2016 and based in the U.K., provides location-based information on services for migrants. 

“We were heartbroken because last year was our biggest year ever, with participation from hundreds and thousands of organizations in the U.S. It took a long time to build up,” Shelley Taylor, RefAid’s founder, told Rest of World.

As these apps proliferate, so do the risks associated with using them, according to those behind them. The U.S. government, said Rios, is hiring companies that can identify users who post information about raids on these platforms. 

“Many of us no longer post all the information,” said Rios. Instead, details on immigration sweeps are “being shared on paper from person to person, or through photos and WhatsApp.”