When a federal raid happens, or when a vehicle is suspected of belonging to federal immigration agents, community members observe each of the vehicles and make note of their license plates.
This tactic began in California during the beginning of the federal immigration siege on Los Angeles before spreading nationwide. Everyday citizens are forming groups and using this information to protect their communities.
Stopice.net , @moralresistance, @harborareapeacepatrols, @pdx_pali_boost, and @muscicitywatch are just a few of the people and organizations who observe and document federal immigration agent license plates across the country.
On December 2, the STOP ICE PLATE TRACKER on stopice.net, which was founded by Sherman Austin, added over 1,000 plates to the website from across the country, including plates spotted in Illinois, North Carolina, Oregon, Minnesota, and California.
Austin grew in the van Nuys and North Hollywood area, later moving to the Long Beach area where he’s lived for over two decades. Community organizer who’s been involved in various types of groups like Cop Watch and also used his computer skills to provide a resource to thise movthis type of work
In the past few weeks, there has been a large increase in plate submissions by users in Arizona, Washington, Georgia, New Mexico, New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota. There are now almost 3,000 federal immigration agency vehicle license plates in the searchable database.
“I noticed that a lot of people, myself included, were trying to keep track of these vehicles,” said Austin tells L.A. TACO. “Something like the plate tracker helps to encourage and promote legal transparency and legal accountability, especially when they're going around, switching plates, trying to hide, trying to be undetectable. And it's like, you know, there's nothing against the law about taking photographs of license plate numbers. It's public information.”
The plate tracker is self-described as a “nation-wide database of confirmed vehicles used in ICE kidnappings,” according to the website. The plate tracker covered California at its launch, but quickly spread across the nation as a public resource to verify, lookup, and submit plates around the country.
If there is a suspected raid happening or a suspicious vehicle, plates can be looked up on their phones by texting Plate <PLATENUMBER> to 877-322-2299. If there is a matching or partially matching plate in the database, a link will be returned to the phone with that information.
The database sources plates in a few different ways. Independent members of the public upload the license plate, along with additional pictures and information, onto the website. Then the post awaits verification until a moderator can review what was submitted. The post is then reviewed by moderators. If the post does not have enough information, it is not posted.
Finally, the plate gets posted to the website where it is accessible to the public. Under each license plate, there is a folder that contains all of the reported sightings of the plate at various locations where it has been seen.
Another way that the website is sourced is through collaborations with rapid responders and community groups across the country who are independently documenting plates, including names like @moralresistance and @pdx_pali_boost, who both contributed to the latest drop.
Josh, the account holder behind @moralresistence on Instagram, has been instrumental in the latest update, a massive new upload of 700 new license plates. Josh prefers to use a pseudonym, not his real name, due to safety concerns.
Josh began compiling license plates as a minor, and recently turned 18, adding them to his own publicly accessible plate trackers on Obsidian drive, Google Drive, and Proton. He also contributes to stopice.net and wiki.icelist.is.
“Here's a list of all these plates that are local to you guys. If you see it out and about, raise the alarm,” said Josh on the importance of license plate observing.
“We've tracked license plates that have left Terminal Island in the evening and made their way to a Hilton. We've tracked them to a Hilton, and then we host[ed] protests at the Hilton.”
He has documented license plates involved in federal immigration agent activity in almost every state, he says, from Tennessee to California to New Jersey. Plates from raids he has witnessed and through collaborating with community organizations across the country.
He uses Obsidian drive to track the agencies' patterns based on this data. He is able to see where different plates travel–and oftentimes are switching vehicles–or remaining in one area and even moving across the country, paralleling the areas of the U.S. that are facing intense immigration crackdowns. He spends about four hours a day collecting license plates.
“There are plates that were really popular in California because they were involved in some raids, and then they were sent to Chicago. And then there are plates from Chicago that went to Charlotte, that have now gone to New Orleans. And we all get to track those, just from all the data that we pull,” said Josh.
Stopice.net also houses both a federal immigration alert network and a list of rapid response groups. The nationwide mobile alert system has over half a million subscribers according to the website. It contains a live map that has real-time alerts of confirmed federal immigration agent activity and sighted federal immigration agents.
Harbor Area Peace Patrol is an organization that documents and observes federal immigration agent vehicles coming out of the Terminal Island Coast Guard Base, where agents have come and gone on almost a daily basis since June.
Harbor Area Peace Patrol, co-founded by Maya Suzuki Daniels and Elijah Chiland, began documenting activity on June 12, 2025.
“We’re like weathermen, we’re just providing the information," said Victor Maldono, lead patroller for the Harbor Area Peace Patrol.
The group is made up of teachers, clergy, and San Pedro community members, who issue daily bulletins called “Be On The Lookout’s” (BOLO’s) on their social media page to inform the community of unmarked vehicles belonging to federal immigration agents.
They have observed federal immigration agents switch license plates between vehicles, paper plates taped on top of license plates, tape places over the plates to obscure them, and even cars being driven with no license plates.
Agent vehicles use California license plates as well as plates from different states including Arizona, Colorado, Washington, Virginia, and Nevada. The observers do not post a vehicle in a BOLO unless they are able to confirm it has been seen engaging in ICE-related activity.
L.A. TACO reached out to DHS for comment on these allegations and will update this article if we hear back.
“We've become so familiar with the cars that we know what the license plate is, regardless of whether it's taped. So we will call it out on Instagram. Literally the next day, they figure it's useless,” Maldono says Maldono. “That's happened multiple times. So they follow us, like they are one of our fans.”
California vehicle code § 5200(a) requires the use of license plates when they are issued to vehicles.
CVC § 5202(a) requires that license plates issued by California and any other jurisdiction must be displayed while a vehicle is being operated in the state.
“A person shall not operate, and an owner shall not knowingly permit to be operated, upon any highway, a vehicle unless the license plate is so attached,” according to the code.
“All ICE owned, or leased motor vehicles must display DHS or GSA license plates,” unless there is a particular exemption which requires the submission of a waiver, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Asset and Facilities Management 2022 guidelines.
Harbor Area Peace Patrol does not directly collaborate with stopice.net, but individual people see their BOLO’s and submit them into the StopICE Plate Tracker, according to Austin.
Documenting federal immigration activity can carry risk.
On December 7, Austin says he was observing ICE activity when federal immigration agents brake-checked his vehicle and attempted to box-in and ram it. The aggressing vehicle had a rear paper plate.
L.A. TACO previously reported the occurrence of ICE agents ramming into a community observer in Ventura County.
L.A. TACO reached out to DHS for comment on this incident and will update this article if we hear back.
Additional reporting by Memo Torres and Izzy Ramirez.
