ICE officers warned a New York man after he sent a critical email to the agency’s chief. Now he’s suing

(CNN) — Two days after Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal officers during the January immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis, David Streever was distraught. So he fired off a three-paragraph emailed rebuke to one of the officials overseeing that operation.

Five months later, that email earned Streever a knock on his door and a visit by two federal officers who issued him a stern warning and said he may have threatened Todd Lyons, then the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

That visit prompted Streever on Monday to file a lawsuit against several Department of Homeland Security officials, claiming the officers “went to extraordinary lengths to confront and intimidate him.”

“The First Amendment unquestionably protects Streever’s criticism,” attorneys with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit civil rights group representing Streever, said in a statement.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement that ICE “investigates all credible threats towards its employees and officers, including threats to the ICE Director.”

“As a matter of policy, we do not comment on any ongoing investigations,” the spokesperson added.

Lyons, who left ICE in late May, did not respond to a request for comment.

Streever’s case is part of a broader debate surrounding Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement efforts, pitting free-speech arguments against claims by federal law enforcement that their officers are being threatened.

In the January 26 email to Lyons, Streever compared him to a Nazi official and warned that his conscience would haunt him if he continued to justify the actions of officers who killed two American citizens in Minneapolis.

“You will never know peace,” Streever wrote to Lyons in the email, which had the subject line “What’s next.”

“You will seek to lose yourself, to escape the burden of knowing the truth about yourself,” he wrote. “But wherever you go, you will find yourself. You will torment yourself until your last day on Earth.”

President Donald Trump wound down the operation in Minneapolis shortly after Pretti’s killing, as the public outrage over his death and the killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer grew untenable.

But on June 23, two federal officials visited Streever’s Rochester, New York, home bearing a written notice warning him against threatening federal officials. The warning told Streever that he “MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW.”

Streever was one of at least two people in New York sought by the same officers last month. In Syracuse, Paigelynn Gonyea was given the same warning letter by officers who entered the polling location where she was working during primary elections on June 23. Gonyea told the Associated Press the visit stemmed from a social media post in January that named Jonathan Ross, the ICE officer who fatally shot Good on January 7 and whose name had been publicly reported.

The Department of Homeland Security later said Gonyea posted Ross’ address, not just his name.

The New York Civil Liberties Union said in a statement last week that ICE was tracking down people like Streever and Gonyea “for no reason but to try to intimidate anyone speaking out against ICE’s rampant abuses.”

“Demanding accountability for officers responsible for killing U.S. citizens in broad daylight is a core First Amendment right that the government has no business interfering with,” NYCLU supervising attorney Perry Grossman said.

Streever was visiting Europe with his daughter when the two officers rung his doorbell on June 23. His wife arrived home while the officers were leaving, and she told them he was expected to return later that week. A third officer appeared in the lobby of a New York City hotel where Streever and his daughter were staying when they arrived back in the country, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit said the home visit, combined with repeated telephone messages, the apparent surveillance of his travel and the visit to his hotel caused “Streever and his family anxiety and distress, including fear of further retaliation from ICE agents for his email or future criticism of ICE and DHS policies and actions.”

DHS has said threats against its officers have increased exponentially since Trump began his second term. But in describing those threats, the agency has frequently lumped in relatively routine and legally protected acts like filming immigration officers during operations with more serious violent threats against officers.

Trump administration officials have also repeatedly threatened or pursued criminal charges against those who voice opposition to DHS or its actions.

White House border czar Tom Homan implied last year that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez could be charged with impeding law enforcement over her efforts to educate immigrants about their rights when dealing with ICE.

CNN reported earlier this year that immigration officers frequently invoked an obscure federal statute to detain American citizens whom they’ve accused of impeding law enforcement.

Criminal charges against those citizens often fell apart under scrutiny, CNN found.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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