A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that sending an email to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials warning that their actions would haunt them is not illegal. The ruling came in the form of a preliminary injunction, which blocks the agency from threatening to prosecute the critic for what is considered protected speech.
The legal dispute traces back to January, when David Streever sent a three-paragraph email to Todd Lyons, who was serving as the acting director of ICE at the time. Streever was responding to the fatal shootings of two Minnesota protesters, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, by ICE officers.
In the email, Streever condemned Lyons as a “monstrous human being” who would be consumed by shame for defending officers who shot unarmed individuals posing no threat. He compared Lyons to Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking Nazi official, and predicted that former President Donald Trump would eventually turn against him for defending what Streever described as the obvious killing of Americans.
“You are a monstrous human being and will go down in history as America’s Reinhard Heydrich, the butcher,” Streever wrote, according to documentation provided by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). “You will never know peace. You will seek to lose yourself, to escape the burden of knowing the truth about yourself. But wherever you go, you will find yourself. You will torment yourself until your last day on Earth.”
Doesn’t this still feel like harassment? I wonder if ICE will just appeal or find another way to punish him for the comparison.
I’m stunned anyone thought sending Nazi comparisons was prosecutable speech. The First Amendment must be exhausted if this even reached court.
Strong free speech win. Hyperbole like this is protection, not a true threat. Glad the judge saw through the intimidation tactics.