Minnesota Sues Texas to Force Extradition of ICE Agent Who Shot Into an Occupied Home and Lied About It
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a federal lawsuit against Texas Governor Greg Abbott seeking to compel the extradition of ICE agent Christian Castro. Castro faces multiple state criminal charges stemming from a January 14 shooting during the federal immigration enforcement operation known as Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis.
Texas Rangers arrested Castro on May 29 on a Minnesota warrant. He has been held in Cameron County Jail near the Mexico border. Under Texas law, he must be released after 90 days if Abbott does not sign a rendition warrant. That deadline arrives next week. Minnesota officials state Abbott has refused to sign the paperwork required to transfer him.
ICE agent charged in Minneapolis Metro Surge shooting denied bond - KSTP.com 5 Eyewitness News
The January Incident
Prosecutors allege that on January 14, Castro fired his service weapon through the front door of a Minneapolis residence knowing people were inside. The bullet struck Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan national, in the leg before lodging in the wall of a child’s bedroom. Other adults and children were in the home.
Castro and another agent claimed under oath that they had been assaulted. They stated that Sosa-Celis and another man attacked them with a snow shovel and broom. Federal authorities initially charged the two men based on that account.
City-owned surveillance cameras captured the encounter. The footage contradicted the agents’ narrative. It showed a short physical struggle and that the shovel was never used as a weapon. A man held a shovel but tossed it aside before the agent approached. Federal assault charges against the targeted men were dropped. ICE leadership later acknowledged that two of its agents made false statements under oath.
The news broadcast featuring analysis of the surveillance video is here:
A timeline of Operation Metro Surge • Minnesota Reformer
The Charges and the Shield
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty charged Castro with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime. A Hennepin County judge found probable cause and issued a nationwide warrant. Castro is the second ICE agent charged for on-duty conduct during Operation Metro Surge.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty won’t seek second term • Minnesota Reformer
Abbott has treated the extradition request as optional. He has signed prior Minnesota requests on average in under 30 days. In this case he has delayed for months while tying any action to unrelated political demands about Minnesota fraud cases. Ellison’s lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of Texas in Brownsville, seeks a court order compelling Abbott to issue the rendition warrant, barring Cameron County Sheriff Manuel Trevino from releasing Castro, and declaring the refusal unconstitutional under the Extradition Clause, federal statute, and Texas law itself.
This is not a routine inter-state transfer dispute. It is a test of whether federal immigration agents who fire into occupied homes containing children and then invent assaults to justify it remain functionally above local criminal law. Abbott’s refusal converts a mandatory constitutional duty into a political shield for the enforcement apparatus that carried out Operation Metro Surge.
The material fact is straightforward: an agent discharged a firearm into a residence with people inside, the official story collapsed under video evidence, and the governor of Texas is now running out the clock on custody near the border. Minnesota is forcing the question into federal court before the 90-day limit expires.
