Texas frees ICE agent charged in Minneapolis shooting after judge rejects extradition order

A federal judge in Texas ruled on August 26 that he lacks jurisdiction to force Governor Greg Abbott to extradite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer wanted in Minnesota on assault charges, clearing the way for the officer’s release from a Brownsville detention center the next day, according to the PBS NewsHour.

The officer, Christian Castro, is charged in Hennepin County, Minnesota, with assault and falsely reporting a crime after prosecutors say he fired a handgun through the front door of a Minneapolis home on January 14, striking 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg during an immigration enforcement operation. Prosecutors say Castro then falsely claimed Sosa-Celis and another man had attacked an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel, PBS NewsHour reported.

A Minnesota judge issued a nationwide arrest warrant for Castro in May, and he was arrested May 29 in Cameron County, Texas. Under Texas law, a person held on an out-of-state warrant must be released after 90 days if the governor has not completed extradition. That deadline pushed Castro’s release toward late August.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. of the Southern District of Texas wrote that Minnesota’s case was “not ripe for adjudication” because the state could not yet show that Abbott had violated extradition law, only that he might. “The Court concludes that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction,” Rodriguez wrote, finding he could not order Abbott to act while the governor’s decision on Castro’s extradition remained pending, according to PBS NewsHour.

Abbott has not acted on Minnesota’s extradition request in the nearly three months since Castro’s arrest. Ellison sued Abbott on August 19 to compel him to sign the extradition warrant, arguing that “Abbott’s inaction unlawfully sidestepped federal extradition to bolster Trump’s deportation campaign,” according to Al Jazeera. “Greg Abbott is turning Texas into a sanctuary state for violent criminals,” Ellison said separately, according to PBS NewsHour.

The lawsuit cited recorded jail calls in which Castro discussed marrying a partner and buying a house in Mexico once released, which Ellison’s office presented as evidence Castro posed a flight risk, Al Jazeera reported. Ellison said after Castro’s release that legal proceedings against Abbott would continue, without specifying what action Minnesota would take next.

Abbott responded to Ellison on social media, writing “You guys are such bad lawyers. You showed up unprepared, uninformed & unpersuasive. You don’t know the law & it showed.”

The Minneapolis shooting took place during a period of expanded ICE enforcement activity in the city that the Trump administration has tied to an investigation into fraud in Minnesota’s social service programs, a rationale Abbott cited in explaining his handling of the case, Al Jazeera reported.

Sosa-Celis’s shooting drew scrutiny in Minneapolis after prosecutors concluded the broom-and-shovel account Castro gave investigators did not match physical evidence at the scene, according to NBC News. The Hennepin County Attorney’s office filed the assault and false-reporting charges against Castro in the months following the shooting.

Castro was released from the Brownsville detention center on August 27 after the ruling removed the legal basis for holding him past the 90-day limit, PBS NewsHour reported. Minnesota’s underlying criminal case against Castro remains open in Hennepin County.