Judge freezes prosecution threats over Rochester man’s ICE email

Prosecution over an angry email to the nation’s top immigration enforcement official is off the table for now for a Rochester man, after a federal judge concluded that the government’s warnings to him probably crossed a constitutional line. Those threats are frozen while his lawsuit moves ahead.

David Streever sent the message in January, as protests spread following the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, by ICE agents in Minneapolis. Three paragraphs long and addressed to Todd Lyons, the agency’s acting director at the time, it branded Lyons a “monstrous human being” and compared him to Reinhard Heydrich, the high-ranking Nazi who helped design the Holocaust.

Agents turned up at his house five months later, according to court filings, handing him a written notice that instructed him to “discontinue” his criticism. They approached him a second time during a later trip to New York City.

What the court ruling blocks

The preliminary decision came last week from Rudolph Contreras, a U.S. district judge in Washington. For as long as the case is open, the government may not carry out its prosecution threat or issue fresh ones. Contreras also rejected a request to dismiss the suit, in a ruling that runs 43 pages, and left the Trump administration 14 days to appeal.

“Mr. Streever has a right to express his political views through non-threatening speech, however degrading the speech might be,” Contreras wrote. The judge found Streever likely to show that the agency “engaged in coercion, rather than persuasion,” pointing to a warning notice that framed his speech as potentially breaking federal law and exposing him to prosecution.

What ICE and the plaintiff say

A spokesperson for Homeland Security, ICE’s parent department, rejected the idea that anyone tried to “squash” free speech, saying the agency reviews every credible threat against its employees and has seen such threats rise sharply. The statement said nothing about whether an appeal is planned.

Streever, represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said the decision confirmed what he had believed all along: that he is “permitted to speak my conscience” in this country, criticism of government officials included. He added that he hoped the experience would remind people the First Amendment covers everyone. Comparable lawsuits over how the agency has handled protesters and critics are pending in courts nationwide.