A federal judge has refused to order Texas to extradite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer charged with shooting a man and lying about it during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
Christian Castro is charged in Minnesota with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 shooting of 24-year-old Julio Sosa-Celis.
Minnesota authorities have sought his extradition since his arrest, but he remains in custody in Brownsville, Texas, a city bordering Mexico.
Under Texas law and barring extradition, Castro must be released after 90 days of detention, which is Thursday.
Twin Cities attorney Jack Rice, who reviewed the judge's ruling in the case, called it strange.
"Essentially what this federal judge did was deferred to the governor of Texas, who said that he has the right to review Christian Castro's eligibility for extradition, and there was no evidence of bad faith," Rice explains. "And so, therefore, Texas gets to decide. That almost never, ever happens."
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a request for a temporary restraining order last week, asking a federal judge to prevent the sheriff in Cameron County, Texas, from releasing Castro, and to order Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to sign his extradition warrant.
Ellison, in a statement following the ruling, said he respectfully, but strongly, disagreed with the order, adding the court acknowledged that Castro is a flight risk.
"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," wrote Ellison. "We will continue litigating this case and do everything in our power to ensure Castro is returned to Minnesota to face his criminal charges."
Ellison added that Minnesota should "never had had to file this lawsuit or this motion," and that Abbott is "playing with constitutional fire."
Rice says the rarity of this kind of situation will make any appeal difficult, simply because there isn't much precedent.
"By the time this process sort of takes care of itself, we're seeing this, for lack of a better word, a schism between states where one state doesn't cooperate with another, really is extraordinarily rare," he adds. "I don't mean to compare this to the Civil War, but we were seeing those sorts of things where you weren't getting cooperation between states on a lot of issues. But we've had this understanding that all 50 states would cooperate when this happened."
Minnesota officials believe Castro could flee the country, citing calls he made from jail to a woman in Mexico, talking “about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico when he is released,” according to the lawsuit.
Castro is accused of firing a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, shooting Sosa-Celis in the leg. Prosecutors say Castro also falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.
At a federal hearing in Brownsville on Tuesday, attorneys with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office argued it would be hard to compel Castro to face charges in their state if he is released, and they fear Castro may flee the country, citing his phone conversations with a woman who lives in Mexico.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said last week he would not respond to the extradition request, citing the ongoing investigation into fraud in government social service programs in Minnesota, which President Donald Trump used to justify his immigration crackdown there.
