GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A Grand Haven man has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for threatening Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Timothy VerHey, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan, announced that 43-yera-old Christopher Ray Plyler was sentenced on Tuesday.
Between November 2025 and January 2026, Plyler posted a dozen threatening comments on YouTube videos about civil unrest in Minneapolis. In one comment, Plyler discussed using chemical gases.
According to the feds, Plyler also used Google to search instructions for making hazardous chemical gases and also searched the home address of a former Homeland Security secretary.
He pled guilty in May to posting a message that read “Let them come I’m ready to kill ICE Nazis and make them pay with their lives the war is on.”
During the sentencing, Judge Hala Jarbou said, "As an American, you have an absolute right to speak out, but there’s a line you can’t cross,” and “threats will not be tolerated.”
VerHey said in a statement, “Threatening federal officers for doing their job will not be tolerated in this district. Our immigration laws were enacted by our representatives in Congress and they will be enforced. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been given this job, and it is unreasonable for anyone to direct their anger towards them for doing it. Nobody gets to veto federal law by making threats against these officers, and anyone who tries will be prosecuted by my office.”
“There is a clear line between expressing an opinion and threatening to kill federal law enforcement officers. Crossing that line has consequences,” said Jennifer Runyan, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office. “I am grateful for the outstanding work of our FBI Grand Rapids Resident Agency Joint Terrorism Task Force and the United States Secret Service. Their diligence, coordination, and commitment helped disrupt a potential threat before it could be carried out.”
