A federal judge has ruled that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement likely violated the First Amendment when agents delivered a warning notice to a New York man over a sharply critical email he sent to the agency's then-acting director.
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday barring the Department of Homeland Security from making further threats against David Streever based on the email. Contreras wrote that the notice "practically shouts" that Streever could face prosecution if he continued engaging in political speech.
Streever sent the email to then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons in January after two U.S. citizens were killed by federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota. He called Lyons a "monstrous human being" and compared him to Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich.
While describing the message as unkind and potentially unproductive, Contreras found it was "a far cry" from an actual threat, a category of speech not protected by the First Amendment. The warning left the prospect of investigation or prosecution hanging over Streever "like the sword of Damocles," the judge wrote.
As The Washington Post previously reported, federal agents went to Streever's Rochester-area home in July, roughly five months after he sent the email. When they did not find him there, authorities tracked him to a New York City hotel where he was staying with his 7-year-old daughter and sought to have him sign a notice warning that his email could constitute a crime.
Streever was not the only ICE critic to receive such a notice. Agents presented the same form to Paigelynne Gonyea, another Upstate New York resident, after accusing her of posting an ICE agent's address online, an allegation she denies.
DHS denied trying to suppress protected speech and said it investigates credible threats against its personnel. A senior ICE official told the court the agency had seen a "dramatic" increase in threats and said its investigation of Streever had already been closed. Justice Department lawyers did not argue in court that Streever's email itself contained a threat.
"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," Streever said after the ruling.
