Sherman Austin’s buzzing cellphone often wakes him up as early as 3 a.m., with messages coming into his Long Beach home from the East Coast — there’s been another sighting of suspected immigration officers.

The 42-year-old computer programmer, who also drives for a food-delivery app, has spent much of his free time in recent months moderating stopice.net — which he created in February, “falling asleep on my computer like every night.”

Austin looks at every report that pours in from the public about sightings of immigration officers, about 50 a day from anywhere in the country. He uses various data to try and determine if the report is true. If so, he posts and texts it to those of his 25,000 subscribers in the area of the sighting; sometimes, he also puts up reports attached with “Unconfirmed Report.”

His service is free.

“I think people see what’s happening in their community, and they want to do something about it, and Stop ICE is an easy-to-use tool that enables people to quickly get the word out,” Austin said.

ICE, of course, refers to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Whether it’s for getting attorneys to a specific area to help people in court, getting people out to document ICE activity in their neighborhood, organizing protests or other actions to raise awareness, or even just to inform others that ICE is in their area and to take precautions — be safe and vigilant,” he said.

“We as a community can utilize (our) rights and assert those rights to build a broader infrastructure that we can use to further mobilize each other in our communities to get people out to these areas where these ICE raids are occurring,” Austin said.

Austin’s Stop ICE Alerts setup comes as President Donald Trump’s administration attempts to carry out its promise to conduct the “largest deportation” program in U.S. history.

In San Diego last week, agents raided Buona Forchetta, an Italian restaurant, and its next-door sister eatery, and detained some employees, with an angry crowd of customers and witnesses gathered outside. In Pomona in April, federal agents showed up in a parking lot of The Home Depot and detained day labors, perhaps15 to 20, accused of being illegally in the country. In May, ICE agents began arresting people after they walked out of immigration courts in Los Angeles and Santa Ana.

On Friday, June 6, apparent federal agents went to spots in downtown Los Angeles and took people into custody, apparently suspected immigration-law violators.

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief and the key architect of the president’s plan, has said the goal is 3,000 arrests a day, a goal that might rise. Trump rescinded a President Joe Biden-era policy that protected certain sites such as churches, hospitals, and schools from immigration enforcement — a catalyst for the creation of Stop ICE.

“I immediately thought of my kids’ school and what would happen if they showed up,” Austin said. “I was looking around to see if anyone was doing anything in terms of like a rapid-alert system that would disseminate information out to the community right away, like to anybody and everybody. I was like, this has to be done because if something goes down, like at my kids’ school, I want everybody to know. Like, I want everyone to get mobilized.”

The First Amendment protects those publicizing law enforcement’s public movements, said David Loy, the legal director of the First Amendment Coalition and an attorney.

“People have a right to know,” he said. “People have a right to observe, document, record information of public concern and post it publicly and share it. What people do with that information is up to them, but the First Amendment right to freedom of speech doesn’t depend on whether people will do good things or bad things with the information.”

When asked the agency’s thoughts about those using apps and social media to alert the public about immigration officers conducting operations, an ICE spokesman provided a statement:

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fully respects the constitutional rights of all people to peacefully express their opinions,” it said. “That being said, ICE remains committed to performing its immigration-enforcement mission consistent with federal law and agency policy.”

In 2000, a 17-year-old Austin created a website called Raise The Fist. People could post their articles and engage with others in the comment section or in debate forums, he said. Content included subjects such as protesting the Los Angeles Democratic National Convention and boycotting Nike for its alleged use of sweatshops.

Two years later, his mother’s North Hollywood home was raided by federal agents, Austin said, with them leaving with his computers. Another user posted a link to Raise The Fist that went to another website, he said, that included instructions on how to create molotov cocktails. In 2003, Austin agreed to a plea deal to spend one year in prison. He had been charged with the distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction, according to court records.

Austin talked in detail about the case during interviews with the Southern California News Group, saying he didn’t do anything wrong, he only ran his website, that he didn’t have anything to do with the molotov cocktail recipe. Looking at potentially spending 20 years in federal prison, he said, he took the plea deal, in part worried about overreaction post-9/11.

His first website prepared him for Stop ICE, he said.

To protect his users, he does not store their phone numbers.

“Me developing this whole platform, I think, that’s a huge, huge, huge responsibility I have, because people are putting their trust in me specifically to safeguard that information,” Austin said.