A recent lawsuit filed by MontCo Community Watch successfully obtained a temporary injunction from a federal judge which blocks the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from obtaining their user information from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

MontCo Community Watch, a grassroots organization that tracks local ICE activity, said in the lawsuit said that on September 11, DHS sent two summonses to Meta asking for names, zip codes, email addresses, and other information of users who accessed the group’s Facebook or Instagram pages.

The group’s lawyers said DHS had taken unlawful steps to try to unmask the people behind it and its actions amount to a clear First Amendment violation, The Inquirer said.

The group’s members are “in immediate danger of having their personal information shared with DHS, and therefore in danger of being targeted for harassment, detention, and persecution,” the lawsuit said. Legal filings on behalf of Montco Community Watch say local residents see ICE agents “every day,” and that the agency has “carried out a series of well-documented arrests and abusive searches, detentions and arrests.”

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