Federal immigration investigators have been visiting people who criticize ICE online or by email, accusing some of “doxing” or threatening agents even when no charges follow, according to a new federal lawsuit and reporting by multiple outlets. The practice matters because a knock at the door from Homeland Security is not a content moderation notice. It is the government showing up in person after speech it dislikes.
David Streever, a Rochester, New York, resident, sued in federal court in Washington, DC, after agents from ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility visited his home and later found him at a New York City hotel, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which represents him.
Streever says the agents were responding to an email he sent to Todd Lyons, then acting director of ICE, after federal agents killed two US citizens in Minneapolis. The email harshly attacked Lyons and compared him to Reinhard Heydrich, but Streever argues it did not threaten violence. ICE did not arrest him. Agents left a “WARNING NOTICE” saying the office handles crimes against the United States, including threats against ICE personnel, and that Streever’s conduct “MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW,” according to the lawsuit.
Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney at FIRE, said the First Amendment limits more than arrests. He told The Verge that government retaliation or coercion can also violate free speech protections. Steinbaugh said he does not know how DHS located Streever at the hotel.
DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis told The Verge that the department does not comment on ongoing investigations and denied that DHS or its components are trying to suppress speech. Bis said ICE investigates credible threats against employees and officers, including threats to the ICE director, and said people who assault or threaten law enforcement will face consequences.
Online criticism becomes an investigative lead
The Streever case fits a broader pattern reported by several news organizations. Wired reported that ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility has opened more than 100 investigations into alleged doxing and threats involving ICE. The New York Times reported that since at least last August, DHS has sent several hundred administrative subpoenas to platforms including Google, Reddit, Discord, and Meta seeking identifying information about people who criticize ICE online.
Another case involved Paigelynne Gonyea, a Syracuse woman confronted by ICE special agents David Brodie and Abbi Henry while she was working at a polling place, according to The Associated Press. Gonyea told the AP that agents had left her a voicemail about an Instagram post in which they believed she had doxed an ICE agent. She said she thought the warning concerned a January post about Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent identified in press reports as having shot Renee Good.
DHS has described the identification of federal agents as doxing, including in cases where a name has already appeared publicly. Bis told the AP that doxing federal law enforcement officers is a federal crime and endangers agents and their families.
The Washington Post reported a similar visit to a 67-year-old retiree in the Philadelphia suburbs after he emailed Joseph Dernbach, an ICE prosecutor in an Afghan refugee deportation case. The man urged Dernbach not to “play Russian roulette” with the refugee’s life. According to the Post, DHS obtained information tied to his Google account, and agents later came to his home with a printout of the email. The agents reportedly said the email was not illegal but that references to Russian roulette and the Taliban could be read as threats.
DHS statistics and civil liberties warnings
DHS has argued that threats and assaults against immigration officers have surged. In March, the department claimed threats against agents had increased by 8,000 percent and assaults by more than 1,300 percent, figures Bis repeated to The Verge. NPR has reported that assault figures do not appear to support the scale of those claims.
Aaron Mackey, deputy legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The Verge that some speech can fall outside First Amendment protection, such as urging a crowd to break into a building and set it on fire. He said calling someone a Nazi is protected expression and is not incitement.
The dispute is now about mechanism as much as rhetoric: subpoenas to platforms, warning notices, home visits, and accusations of doxing can all pressure speakers without producing a criminal case. Streever’s lawsuit asks a court to treat that pressure as a constitutional problem, not just an awkward house call from federal agents with paperwork.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
