ICE Agents Target Online Critics with Home Visits
A few hours after checking into a hotel in New York City, David Streever received a call from the front desk informing him that someone was looking for him. Streever had just returned from a vacation in Finland with his daughter. Unbeknownst to him, while he was away, agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had visited his home in Rochester and spoken to his wife. They left behind a “WARNING NOTICE,” stating that ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is “responsible for enforcing crimes against the United States,” including “threats made against ICE personnel.” Almost immediately after landing in the U.S., another agent tracked him down at his hotel.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, DC, Streever asserts that he did not threaten anyone. Following the federal agents’ fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, Streever sent an email to Todd Lyons, who was then the acting director of ICE. In part, his message read, “You are a monstrous human being and will go down in history as America’s Reinhard Heydrich, the butcher.” He warned Lyons of his “downfall,” but stated that the consequence would be “the burden of knowing the truth about yourself.”
Streever was not arrested for the email, but the notice he received indicated that it “MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW.” This warning is not an isolated case. Over the past year, DHS has targeted individuals who criticize President Trump’s immigration policies in emails and social media, accusing them of threatening federal personnel or “doxing” agents whose identities are already public. OPR has reportedly opened over 100 investigations into “incidents of doxing and threats” involving ICE. Unlike the recent arrests of alleged antifa members, no criminal charges have been filed in these cases, but the broader crackdown raises significant concerns about civil liberties.
“I think that everyone would instantly recognize it as a First Amendment violation if the police showed up and arrested someone for this email. But the First Amendment doesn’t just cover arrests — it also prohibits government retaliation or coercion,” said Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, who is representing Streever.
Steinbaugh is unsure how DHS located Streever at his hotel but noted that the department frequently requests assistance from web platforms to identify critics. Since at least last August, DHS has issued several hundred administrative subpoenas to companies like Google, Reddit, Discord, and Meta, seeking the names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other identifying information of individuals who criticize ICE online.
“There is a broader pattern of the federal government using dubious legal resources or tools to deter speech,” Steinbaugh remarked.
In a statement, a DHS spokesperson claimed the department does not comment on ongoing investigations. “Any allegation that DHS and its components are attempting to ‘squash’ free speech is categorically FALSE. ICE investigates all credible threats towards its employees and officers, including threats to the ICE Director,” the spokesperson stated. “Anyone who assaults or threatens our law enforcement officers will face the consequences.”
On the same day they spoke to Streever’s wife, ICE agents confronted Paigelynne Gonyea, a woman from Syracuse, while she was working at a polling place. They issued her a warning notice similar to Streever’s, accusing her of publicly posting personal information about federal officers. Gonyea believed the warning was related to a January social media post about Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot Renee Good.
Gonyea recounted that she instructed DHS agents to meet her at the polling place after receiving a voicemail about “a post that we believe you made on Instagram where you doxxed an ICE agent back in January.” DHS has repeatedly claimed that identifying federal agents — even those whose identities are already public — constitutes doxing. “Doxxing federal law enforcement officers is a federal crime that puts their lives and their families in serious danger,” the spokesperson told the press.
However, reports indicate that DHS is blurring the lines between criticism and threats. Last year, agents questioned a 67-year-old retiree in the Philadelphia suburbs about an email he sent to Joseph Dernbach, the lead ICE prosecutor on a deportation case involving an Afghan refugee identified in a Washington Post article as “Mr. H.” The retiree wrote, “Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life,” urging caution. Shortly after, he received an email from Google stating that DHS had requested information related to his account. A couple of weeks later, two plainclothes DHS agents visited his home with a local police officer, armed with a printout of his email. Although the agents acknowledged that the email was not illegal, they suggested that phrases like “Russian roulette” and “the Taliban” could be interpreted as threats.
DHS claims that identifying agents puts their lives at risk, which is why they often conceal their identities. In March, DHS reported an 8,000 percent increase in threats against its agents and a more than 1,300 percent rise in assaults, figures reiterated by the spokesperson. In a statement, the spokesperson implied that comparisons of ICE to Nazis were responsible for these assaults. “Comparing ICE day-in and day-out to the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police, and slave patrols has consequences,” the spokesperson stated.
Aaron Mackey, the deputy legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, noted that while some speech can be considered threats — such as inciting violence — simply calling someone a Nazi does not meet that legal threshold. “Just calling someone a Nazi, which is an age-old epithet that is protected by the First Amendment, is not in the same universe as incitement, which is not protected by the First Amendment,” Mackey explained.
An analysis found that the number of assaults on ICE agents is far lower than DHS claims. Yet, DHS has used these questionable statistics to justify its own violence against civilians. Last October, Border Patrol agent Charles Exum shot Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen, while on patrol in Chicago. Martinez had been following Exum’s unmarked vehicle, recording the incident and shouting “La migra! La migra!” to alert others to the DHS presence.
Exum later claimed that Martinez had rammed his vehicle, boasting about the shooting in a private chat. Martinez, who survived, was charged with assaulting a federal officer and faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted. However, it appears the agency was already monitoring her, as just days before the shooting, a Customs and Border Protection team had shared her name and social media details with agents in Chicago, labeling her as “encouraging the doxxing” of agents.
Ultimately, the government sought to drop the case, and the charges against her were dismissed. Following this, DHS labeled Martinez a domestic terrorist. Internal communications revealed that her information had been verified in DHS databases, but a department spokesperson denied the existence of a dedicated “domestic terrorists” database, stating that DHS does monitor threats against its agents. Congressional Democrats have sought more information about these lists, but DHS has not complied.
Whether or not a specific database exists, officials have accused critics of terrorism. White House adviser Stephen Miller labeled Alex Pretti a “would-be domestic terrorist” after he was killed by federal agents. Last year, Trump designated “antifa” as a domestic terror organization. In June, a federal judge sentenced several individuals to lengthy prison terms for their alleged connections to an “antifa cell” after a shooting incident involving an agent.
The cumulative effect of these actions is to equate dissent with crime, suggesting that anyone who criticizes or protests Trump’s immigration policies poses a threat to federal law enforcement. “Even when there are specific acts of violence targeting federal officials, we’re seeing the federal government broadly prosecuting individuals who are far removed from that context, which chills speech,” Mackey stated. While Streever and Gonyea may not face criminal charges, the government continues to attempt to silence them.
