A federal judge in Texas has refused to compel the extradition of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent charged with shooting a man during an immigration raid in Minneapolis, potentially paving the way for his release from custody as early as Thursday.
Christian Castro, the ICE agent at the centre of the case, has been held in a county jail in Brownsville, Texas — a city on the US-Mexico border — since May. He faces charges of assault and falsely reporting a crime in Hennepin County, which covers Minneapolis, in connection with the non-fatal shooting of 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis on 14 January. Prosecutors allege Castro fired a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, striking Sosa-Celis in the leg. Afterwards, Castro and a second agent claimed that Sosa-Celis and another man had attacked federal officers with a broom handle and a snow shovel — allegations later disproven when video footage of the incident emerged. Criminal charges against Sosa-Celis were subsequently dropped, and both agents were placed on administrative leave after the then-acting ICE director acknowledged they appeared to have made "untruthful statements."
The shooting took place during Operation Metro Surge, a large-scale deployment of federal immigration agents to Minnesota that began in December under President Donald Trump, lasting less than three months and generating widespread protests and allegations of civil liberties violations. Minnesota has sought Castro's extradition for months, but Texas Governor Greg Abbott has declined to sign the extradition warrant. Abbott cited an ongoing investigation into alleged fraud in Minnesota's government social services programmes — the same justification Trump used to launch the immigration crackdown in the state — as his reason for not responding to the request.
In Wednesday's ruling, Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr found that he lacked grounds to intervene because Abbott had neither formally agreed nor refused to sign the warrant, and had therefore not yet violated any law. "The record reflects only that Governor Abbott has neither agreed nor refused to sign the rendition warrant as to Castro," Rodriguez wrote. Under Texas law, a person subject to an extradition order cannot be held for more than 90 days without being transferred or released — a deadline that expires for Castro on Thursday.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who filed the legal action seeking a temporary restraining order, argued that Abbott's inaction was politically motivated and amounted to shielding a federal agent from accountability in order to support the Trump administration's deportation campaign. Minnesota officials have also warned that Castro poses a flight risk, citing phone calls he made from jail to a woman in Mexico in which he reportedly discussed marriage and buying a house there upon his release. The case has drawn attention as a test of whether states can hold federal immigration agents criminally accountable for conduct during enforcement operations, and what role governors can play in shaping that outcome.