New York man says ICE violated his constitutional rights with home visit following angry email
A New York man lambasted former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons over email for his leadership following two fatal Minneapolis shootings. Agents showed up at his front doorstep months later, warning about criminal charges, prompting a First Amendment lawsuit.
David Streever sent Lyons an email in January, outraged over the shootings and wanting the acting director to know how he felt. He didn’t expect federal agents to track him for questioning, he told the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a libertarian free speech organization that is representing him in the litigation.
“The way you are protecting the obvious execution in Minnesota, even as we see the videos, will lead to your downfall,” Streever wrote to Lyons. “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.”
DHS and ICE shared similar statements to Straight Arrow, both stating that allegations that the department is “attempting to ‘squash’ free speech is categorically false.” The agencies say they investigate all “credible threats” made against employees and officers, but declined to comment further on ongoing investigations.
Both claimed their agents and officers are facing “coordinated campaigns of violence.”
“Anyone who assaults or threatens our law enforcement officers will face the consequences,” the statements read.
According to court records, ICE special agents David Brodie and Abbi Henry visited Streever’s Rochester home on June 23 and handed his wife a document that read “warning notice.” He claimed that a U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent tracked Streever and his 7-year-old daughter to a New York City hotel as they traveled home from Finland.
The agent left a business card with a hotel clerk intended for Streever.
Streever’s lawyers pointed to a similar incident where Brodie and Henry visited a Syracuse woman who was volunteering at a polling place during New York’s primary election, giving her a similar warning.
NPR reported that in Streever’s case, the agency was investigating a credible threat. The same station reported that the agency accused the Syracuse woman of posting an agent’s address online.
“It just doesn’t sit right with me,” Paigelynne Gonyea, the volunteer whom agents visited, wrote on a GoFundMe for legal fees. “The whole situation raises a lot of questions about free speech, government overreach, and how election workers are treated while they’re doing their jobs.”
FIRE claimed both instances amounted to intimidation for criticizing the agency and not agents investigating a violent threat against Lyons.
“The fact that authorities didn’t respond immediately shows that David presented no threat,” Adam Steinbaught, senior attorney at FIRE, said in a Monday release. “This pursuit is designed to intimidate lawful speech, pure and simple.”
Streever is seeking an order from a judge directing DHS to stop issuing the “warning letters” and legal fees.
DHS issues warning notice to Streever
According to court documents, agents left Streever’s wife with a document that warned he could be in violation of a federal law. The document said Streever’s January email is being investigated as a potential threat against Lyons.
“This notice officially informs you that it is unlawful to threaten to assault, kidnap, and/or murder a federal official or that federal official’s immediate family member with the intent to impede, intimidate, and/or interfere with the federal official’s duties or retaliate against a federal official due to the performance of their duties.”
Streever nor his wife signed the document.
Agents gave Gonyea a similar document, according to her Instagram, which she declined to sign. She later shared a voicemail that an agent identified as Brodie left for her. He visited her apartment and spoke to her husband, and said they were investigating a post she made that doxxed an ICE agent back in January.
He told Goyea she wasn’t in “any type of trouble” in the message.
“Simply put, the only threat here is the one DHS and ICE officials pose to Streever’s First Amendment freedoms — and those of his fellow Americans,” FIRE said in the release.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
