(This article was written by Madison McVan of The Minnesota Reformer, an affiliate of The States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization & is republished by US Border News with permission under a Creative Commons license)
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is suing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, alleging that Abbott is holding up the extradition of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer charged with assault in the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis on Jan. 14.
The agent, Christian Castro, was arrested in Cameron County, Texas, on May 29 by the Texas Rangers, a state law enforcement agency. He is still incarcerated in Texas.
Castro is charged with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime. He is accused of firing his gun through the closed front door of a Minneapolis home, hitting Cesar-Solis in the leg. Three other people were inside the house, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said, and one of the bullets was found embedded in the wall of a child’s bedroom.
Castro is also charged with falsely reporting a crime because he accused Sosa-Celis and another Venezuelan immigrant of assaulting him with a broom and a snow shovel before Castro opened fire. The U.S. Department of Justice charged the two immigrant men with assaulting a federal agent, but the charges were dropped after surveillance footage disproved Castro’s claims.
A federal law prohibits law enforcement agencies from detaining fugitives awaiting extradition for longer than 90 days. That means Castro could be released from custody as soon as Wednesday, Aug. 26, Ellison said. His office is asking a federal judge to compel Abbott to instruct Cameron County authorities to hand over Castro to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions and to block Castro’s release if he is not extradited before the 90-day deadline.
“Christian Castro is not above the law, and Greg Abbott isn’t either,” Ellison said.
A spokesperson from Abbott’s office initially said the governor would not comment on pending extradition matters. Tuesday afternoon, however, the office emailed the Reformer Abbott’s response to a reporter’s question about the lawsuit:
“Well, first of all, I don’t trust Tim Walz on anything, let alone something like this. While they’re making demands, I got a demand of my own, and that is, it’s time for Minnesota to step up and repay the United States of America and Americans for all the fraud that they have committed in their state under federal programs. I will not respond to them at all until they step up and do what’s right, and they acknowledge their fault in the fraud that took place, and they fully repay the United States of America for the fraud they committed.” -Texas Governor Greg Abbott
Ellison and Moriarty, whose office charged Castro, emphasized that extradition is a routine task and a settled point of law.
The U.S. Constitution requires states to facilitate the extradition of people charged in other states.
A unanimous 1987 Supreme Court ruling said “the commands of the Extradition Clause are mandatory, and afford no discretion to the executive officers or courts of the asylum state.”
Moriarty said Texas has facilitated the extradition of three defendants to Minnesota since Gov. Tim Walz sent the extradition paperwork for Castro to Abbott’s office on June 2 — only Castro’s case has been delayed during that time.
“It is an administrative process. It is not controversial,” Moriarty said.
Texas Democrats, who hold a minority in the state Legislature, are also pushing Abbott to hand over Castro.
Should Texas extradite ICE Agent Christian Castro to Minnesota?
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