A federal judge on Wednesday declined to force Texas to extradite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer accused of shooting a man and lying about the incident during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. said in a written order that he could not stop the county sheriff from releasing Christian Castro or compel Texas Governor Greg Abbott to sign an extradition warrant. The Cameron County sheriff said Castro would be released on Thursday morning.
Castro is charged in Minnesota with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 shooting of 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Castro is accused of firing a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, shooting Sosa-Celis in the leg. Prosecutors say Castro also falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.
After a Minnesota judge issued a nationwide warrant for Castro's arrest in May, authorities, including Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, arrested Castro in Cameron County on May 29. Minnesota authorities have sought his extradition since his arrest, but he remains in custody in Brownsville, Texas, a city bordering Mexico. Under Texas law and barring extradition, Castro must be released after 90 days of detention, which is Thursday.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a request for a temporary restraining order last week seeking to block Castro's release or to order his return to Minnesota. Texas attorneys on Tuesday argued the judge could not rule on a decision that's still pending. Abbott has not denied the extradition.
Instead, he is waiting for the outcome of an internal state investigation considering whether Castro was legally a “fugitive” under the Extradition Clause, the lawyers said. The judge wrote in Wednesday's order that the court can't yet step in. Ellison said in a statement that his office would keep litigating the case but didn't specify what it would do next.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, whose office handles prosecutions in Minneapolis, said at a new conference that Abbott was unfairly harboring the former ICE agent. "If Christian Castro walks out of the door of the jail tomorrow and disappears into Mexico, it will be the fault of one person: Governor Greg Abbott,” Moriarty said. Abbott's press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris, welcomed the ruling and said it was the governor's duty to carefully consider the merits of extradition requests.
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