A federal judge in Texas on Aug. 26 said he will not compel the state to turn over an immigration agent whose extradition was sought by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Christian Castro faces second-degree assault and false reporting charges in Minnesota after allegedly shooting a 24-year-old Venezuelan man, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, in January.
Castro allegedly fired a shot through Celis’s front door during an immigration operation, striking him in the leg. He is also accused of falsely reporting that Celis and another man attacked him with a broom and shovel.
He has been held in a Brownsville, Texas, jail for months, but Texas law says he can only be detained for 90 days while awaiting extradition; that holding period will run out on Aug. 27.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbot has delayed approval of Ellison’s extradition request, pending an internal Texas review.
The governor instead pointed to recent allegations of widespread fraud in Minnesota.
“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,” Abbott said during a news conference earlier this month.
Ellison sued to block his release, and to compel Abbot to extradite him.
The Minnesota Attorney General’s office has argued that Castro is a flight risk, based on phone calls he had with a woman in Mexico “about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico when he is released.”
During a hearing on Aug. 25, officials from that office also told U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. that it would be difficult to extradite him from Mexico, should he escape there.
At the same hearing, Rodriguez had previously expressed skepticism about those arguments, saying he was "not inclined" to compel extradition or hold Castro longer than the time mandated by law.
“I respectfully but strongly disagree with the court’s order, which nonetheless acknowledges that Christian Castro is a flight risk, that Minnesota will be harmed if he is allowed to flee to Mexico, and that Governor Abbott’s consideration of Minnesota’s extradition request is of ‘an atypically long duration’ — to say the least,” Ellison said in a statement.