ICE

He Compared ICE's Chief to a Nazi, so ICE Tracked Him Down on Vacation With His Daughter

A new lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of violating the First Amendment rights of its critics by issuing warning notices to them.

Tosin Akintola | 7.7.2026 1:56 PM

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In January, following the shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minneapolis, David Streever sent an email to the publicly available address of acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons, calling Lyons a "monstrous human being" and comparing him to Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of the Holocaust. He also labeled Lyons a "sad, despised man" who will "never know peace."

Five months after his email, ICE agents appeared at Streever's home in Rochester, New York, to serve him a warning notice that his email may have been a "VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW." After finding out he wasn't home, federal agents then tracked him to a hotel in New York City—where he was returning from an international vacation with his daughter—to try to get in contact with him.

Now, Streever is pursuing legal action. In a lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Streever accuses the government of violating his First Amendment rights by attempting to silence and intimidate him.

The notice Streever received claims that his email may "constitute a violation of Title 18 of the U.S. Code," which makes it illegal to "threaten to assault, kidnap, and/or murder a federal official," or use an official's "restricted........

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