Lawsuit Claims ICE Visits After Email Calling Acting Director 'America's Reinhard Heydrich' Were Unconstitutional

com reported that David Streever of Rochester, New York, sent a three-paragraph email in January to then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. ” About five months later, ICE Special Agents David Brodie and Abbi Henry visited Streever’s home while he was in Finland with his five-year-old daughter.

The agents left a notice directing Streever to “discontinue” his “behavior” and to sign and return the document.

After Streever returned to the United States and stayed at a New York City hotel, a third DHS agent tracked him there. A clerk gave Streever the agent’s business card, and Streever later received voicemails from two unnamed “Homeland Security Investigations” callers.

On July 6 the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a federal lawsuit in the District of Columbia naming DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin as defendant.

The suit claims ICE and DHS engaged in unconstitutional actions that chilled protected speech and asks the court to order the agencies to stop the alleged coercion and retaliation against Streever. Adam Steinbaugh, senior attorney at FIRE and lead counsel, stated that the visits were intended to chill speech in violation of the First Amendment.

“I think that everyone agrees that if law enforcement came to David's home and arrested him for this email—everyone would look at that and say that's a violation of the First Amendment," Adam Steinbaugh, senior attorney at FIRE and lead counsel on the case, told Military.com. A DHS spokesperson told Military.com that ICE and DHS officers face a 1,300 percent increase in assaults, a 3,300 percent increase in vehicular attacks, and an 8,000 percent increase in death threats. Steinbaugh noted that similar notices had been sent to others and said the practice could be applied across administrations.”