U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement likely violated a New York man’s freedom of speech when it threatened to criminally prosecute him after he sent a scathing email to the agency’s former top leader, a federal judge in Washington ruled.
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras this week ordered ICE not to act on the “warning notice” that federal agents hand delivered to David Streever that said he “may be in violation of federal law,” according to court documents. The ICE Office of Professional Responsibility, the notice stated, had “reason to believe” that a biting email Streever sent to the then-acting ICE director, Todd Lyons, may have unlawfully threatened a federal official.
If he did not “discontinue” his behavior, the office warned Streever he could face federal and state prosecution, the records said.
Streever sent the outraged email to Lyons following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal immigration authorities. Pretti’s killing, which came weeks after agents also fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis, further escalated debates about government dissenters’ free speech rights amid tense clashes with ICE agents.
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“Americans have long voiced their displeasure with their government,” Contreras said in his ruling. “The Declaration of Independence itself is a list of grievances between Americans and the British government. And Americans have not always indulged in the elevated prose of the Declaration.”
In Streever’s email sent Jan. 26, he called Lyons a “monstrous human being” and compared him to Reinhard Heydrich, a Nazi official who played a key role in orchestrating the Holocaust. Streever told Lyons that the way he was “protecting the obvious execution in Minnesota, even as we see the videos, will lead to your downfall.”
“Even Trump will turn on you before the end, and you will be a sad, despised man who eats himself alive with shame at your own pathetic weakness,” Streever wrote, according to court documents. “You will never know peace. You will seek to lose yourself, to escape the burden of knowing the truth about yourself. But wherever you go, you will find yourself. You will torment yourself until your last day on Earth.”
Federal agents appeared at his house in Rochester, New York, five months later to deliver the warning notice to Streever, but he was returning from a trip to Europe, the records said. Unable to find Streever at his home address, federal agents later appeared at the front desk of a New York City hotel that Streever and his daughter were staying in.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security denied that it has attempted to “squash” free speech.
“ICE investigates all credible threats towards its employees and officers, including threats to the ICE Director,” the spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday.
The Wall Street Journal reported in August that ICE has used a surveillance program to monitor threats towards its agents — a tactic that free speech advocates have decried.
Streever celebrated Tuesday’s ruling in a statement provided by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which represented him in court.
“I’m deeply relieved that the court affirmed what I knew all along: that I am permitted to speak my conscience in the United States of America, including when I criticize government officials,” Streever said. “While I wish this ordeal hadn’t happened, hopefully this incident will serve as a reminder that the First Amendment protects us all.”
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