First Amendment

A Federal Judge Enjoins DHS From Threatening To Prosecute a Critic for Constitutionally Protected Speech

After David Streever castigated ICE's acting director in an email, investigators delivered a "warning notice" saying he "may be in violation of federal law."

Jacob Sullum | 9.16.2026 5:20 PM

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(Jeffrey Carlson/Crimson Dawn Media/FIRE)

On January 26, two days after Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees fatally shot Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti, David Streever sent an angry email to Todd Lyons, then acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Streever called Lyons "a monstrous human being," likened him to the genocidal Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich, and predicted that he would be haunted by "shame at your own pathetic weakness" in defending the Pretti shooting "until your last day on Earth."

That message was surely intemperate and insulting, but it was not illegal. By contrast, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday, the DHS response—a "WARNING NOTICE" that two ICE investigators delivered to Streever's home in Rochester, New York, five months later—likely violated the First Amendment by threatening him with retaliation for constitutionally protected speech.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras issued a preliminary injunction that bars the DHS from taking any action against Streever based on that notice and from "issuing similar warnings" that "suggest he cannot engage in non-threatening criticism of the government." The order remains in effect while the case, Streever v. Mullin, is........

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