ICE Agent Who Lied About Taking pictures May Be About to Go Free

Minnesota lawyer common Keith Ellison testifies throughout a Home Oversight and Authorities Reform Committee listening to in March.
Picture: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Pictures

Minnesota lawyer common Keith Ellison is formally suing Texas governor Greg Abbott, submitting a lawsuit searching for to compel the extradition of a federal immigration agent who’s going through state costs in reference to the Trump administration’s sprawling immigration crackdown within the Minneapolis space earlier this yr.

Ellison made his announcement throughout a Tuesday press convention, accusing the governor of failing to adjust to a requisition warrant from Minnesota governor Tim Walz for Christian Castro, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who’s at the moment being held in Texas — and who might go free within the coming days if the state doesn’t fulfill Minnesota’s request.

In Could, Hennepin County lawyer Mary Moriarty introduced that her workplace was charging Castro, alleging that the agent had fired his service weapon on the entrance door of a residence throughout a January incident, hanging Venezuelan nationwide Julio Sosa-Celis within the leg, with the bullet touchdown within the wall of a kid’s bed room. Prosecutors allege that Castro later lied in regards to the taking pictures, which occurred following a automobile cease. Castro claimed that he had been attacked by Sosa-Celis and his roommate, who he stated had been wielding a shovel and a brush, a story that was later disproved by surveillance footage. Castro was charged with 4 counts of second-degree assault and one rely of falsely reporting against the law.

The lawyer common stated Castro had been arrested by Texas authorities in Could however that Abbott has but to launch the federal agent into Minnesota regulation enforcement’s custody. The lawsuit, filed in Texas federal courtroom, would search to dam Castro’s potential launch and compel Abbott to signal the order for his extradition. “Christian Castro has been charged with breaking the regulation in Minnesota. He should face justice in Minnesota. Governor Abbott ought to have granted Governor Walz’s extradition way back and is required to take action now,” he stated Tuesday.

Ellison famous that Walz has persistently complied with Abbott’s extradition requests and that the Texas governor was equally responsive with Minnesota’s requests till now, accusing Abbott of holding up the switch for almost three months. “Christian Castro isn’t above the regulation and Governor Abbott isn’t both,” he stated.

The lawsuit follows a letter that Ellison despatched to Abbott final week, setting a deadline for Monday at 5 p.m. for the governor to adjust to the order. The lawyer common emphasised the necessity for urgency, pointing to Texas state regulation that might enable Castro to be launched as quickly as subsequent Wednesday, 90 days since he was first arrested.

“Your failure to meet your responsibility to extradite threatens Minnesota’s proper to have Mr. Castro returned for prosecution. The chance is heightened by the State of Texas’s 90-day limitation on the detention of fugitives awaiting extradition. Texas Rangers arrested Mr. Castro on Could 29, 2026, and he has been in custody since then. If Mr. Castro is launched from custody, there’s a substantial danger that he’ll flee to keep away from prosecution in Minnesota,” Ellison wrote final week.

Abbott has but to touch upon the lawsuit along with his workplace telling the Related Press that it “not touch upon pending extradition issues.”

Castro was one in all two ICE brokers who’ve confronted costs stemming from their actions throughout Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s immigration-enforcement motion that noticed 1000’s of federal brokers deployed to Minnesota. Studies rapidly emerged in regards to the brokers’ heavy-handed and violent ways on the bottom, and outrage grew following the killings of Renee Good, a spouse and mom of two, and Alex Pretti, who labored as a nurse for the U.S. Division of Veterans Affairs, in Minneapolis by federal brokers.