Federal Judge Blocks ICE From Threatening Man Who Called Ex-Director 'Monstrous' in Email

Since immigration officers fatally shot Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good during an enforcement operation in Minneapolis in January, the fallout from that shooting has run through one Rochester, New York man's inbox all the way to a federal courtroom. On Tuesday, September 15, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington, D.C. ruled that ICE likely violated David Streever's First Amendment rights when agents pursued him for months over an angry email.

Streever sent that email in January to Todd Lyons, then acting director of ICE, after the Minneapolis shooting. He called Lyons a "monstrous human being," compared him to Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich, and told him his own conscience would "eat himself alive," according to court records cited by USA Today and NPR. Nobody responded for five months.

Then, in June, immigration officers showed up at Streever's home while he was traveling and handed his wife a "warning notice" stating he "MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW." When he returned to the country, officers tracked him to a hotel where he was staying with his young daughter, dropped off a business card, and left voicemails on his phone, according to the lawsuit he filed in July against DHS, ICE, and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

What the judge found

Contreras didn't mince words. He wrote that the notice "practically shouts" that Streever "may be prosecuted if he continues to engage in his political speech," and that the threat "looms over him like the sword of Damocles," forcing him to self-censor.

"Americans have long voiced their displeasure with their government," Contreras wrote, according to The Guardian. "The Declaration of Independence itself is a list of grievances between Americans and the British government."

The government did not argue in court that Streever's email met the legal standard for a "true threat," which is the only category of speech that would strip it of First Amendment protection. FIRE senior attorney Adam Steinbaugh, who represented Streever, said the case was straightforward: "Ominous letters warning people their speech might land them in prison are meant to coerce people into silence, and that's not how the First Amendment works."

DHS's defense

DHS isn't backing down. A spokesperson told USA Today and The Guardian that "any allegation DHS and its components are attempting to 'squash' free speech is categorically FALSE," and said ICE "investigates all credible threats towards its employees and officers, including threats to the ICE Director."

The department pointed to what it says is a documented rise in assaults, vehicular attacks, and death threats against its officers. That's a real and legitimate government interest. Agencies have wide latitude to investigate genuine threats against federal officials, and nobody disputes ICE agents have faced increased hostility in 2026. The dispute here is narrower: whether a five-month-delayed, in-person confrontation over an email with no explicit threat of violence crossed from investigation into intimidation. Contreras concluded it did, at least on the preliminary record.

The ruling is not a final verdict. It's a preliminary injunction, and Contreras granted a two-week stay to give the government room to appeal before the order automatically takes effect. The underlying lawsuit against Noem and other officials continues.

A different First Amendment fight, same season

Streever's case sits alongside another First Amendment ruling this week that cuts the opposite direction. In Bromm v. Lewis County, Judge Benjamin Settle in the Western District of Washington dismissed a First Amendment retaliation claim brought by Paul Bromm, a part-time deputy coroner in Lewis County who was fired after posting Facebook memes appearing to celebrate the September 2025 killing of Charlie Kirk, according to Reason.

Settle found the individual officials who fired Bromm were protected by qualified and prosecutorial immunity, citing Ninth Circuit precedent that public-employee speech claims under the Pickering balancing test "will rarely, if ever" be clearly established enough to defeat immunity. Lewis County and the City of Centralia themselves did not move for summary judgment, meaning Bromm's claim against the government entities, as opposed to the individual officials, is still alive.

Both rulings show courts drawing a real distinction this month: a private citizen criticizing a government official in an email is protected speech the government cannot threaten him over, while a government employee's own inflammatory speech can get him fired with little recourse against the officials who fired him, even if his employer might still answer for it in court.

What happens next: DHS has roughly two weeks to decide whether to appeal Contreras's injunction to the D.C. Circuit, and Bromm's claim against Lewis County and Centralia has not yet been resolved on the merits.