Judge Rules ICE Likely Violated First Amendment by Sending Agents to Rochester Critic’s Home

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled on September 15, 2026, that the Department of Homeland Security likely violated the First Amendment rights of David Streever, a Rochester, New York, man who received an ICE “warning notice” over a critical email he sent to then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons during the January 2026 enforcement surge in Minnesota. According to the lawsuit filed in July by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, two agents came to Streever’s home in June while he was in Finland and handed his wife a notice stating he “may be in violation of federal law.” The judge wrote that Streever “has a right to express his political views through non-threatening speech, however degrading the speech might be,” partly granted a preliminary injunction barring prosecution over the email and similar warnings, and denied the government’s motion to dismiss. DHS previously said claims it was trying to suppress free speech were “categorically FALSE.”