Minnesota sues Texas to force extradition of ICE agent accused of lying about shooting
Minnesota’s attorney general has sued the governor of Texas to force him to extradite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent charged with wounding a man and then lying to justify the shooting during the US agency’s controversial crackdown in Minneapolis.
Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general, is asking a federal judge to bar the sheriff in Cameron county, Texas, from releasing ICE agent Christian Castro, and to order Greg Abbott, Texas’s governor, to sign his extradition warrant so that Minnesota officers can take custody.
Castro was arrested in Texas in May, 11 days after Minnesota prosecutors charged him with four counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of falsely reporting a crime in connection with the 14 January shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan immigrant. But he has still not been extradited to Minnesota to face the charges.
Castro, 52, is accused of firing a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home that he knew was occupied by multiple people, striking Sosa-Celis in the leg. Prosecutors say Castro then falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom and a snow shovel before Castro fired his service weapon.
Ellison and Hennepin county attorney Mary Moriarty have sent letters to Abbott urging him to sign the officer’s extradition after Castro was charged three months ago. Last week, Ellison warned Abbott he would sue if he did not authorize Castro’s extradition by the end of the day on Monday.
Ellison told a news conference on Tuesday that unless Castro was extradited, he could be released from jail next week – 90 days since he was detained – under Texas law, and could be a possible flight risk.
If Castro is freed, Ellison said, he could slip into Mexico from the border town where he’s being held. The lawsuit said Castro has been making calls from jail to a woman in Mexico, talking “about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico when he is released”.
“Christian Castro has been charged with breaking the law in Minnesota,” Ellison said. “He must face justice in Minnesota. Governor Abbott should have granted [Minnesota] Governor [Tim] Walz’s extradition request long ago and is required to do so now.”
Moriarty said that since Castro’s arrest, Texas has extradited three unrelated criminal defendants without incident to Minnesota.
“Governor Abbott has received communication with us on an ongoing basis, including recently,” Ellison said. “We have to take the position that they are refusing to honor the extradition request.”
A spokesperson for Abbott’s office said he would not comment on “pending extradition matters”.
Authorities said Sosa-Celis was shot after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, after a traffic stop to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna, both Venezuelan, were legally in the US, according to Minnesota officials.
Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the US Department of Justice opened an investigation into whether agents lied under oath about what happened.
The shooting was one of three January incidents during the so-called “Operation Metro Surge” in Minneapolis in which federal officers shot people. The other two incidents led to the deaths of US citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, sparking national uproar and widespread public protests over ICE’s violent conduct.
The Associated Press contributed reporting