<\/p>\n
FILE – Federal immigration officers at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
John Locher\/AP Photo\/John Locher<\/p>\n
Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty holds up a document containing charges against ICE agent Christian Castro during a news conference at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, on Monday, May 18, 2026. (Ren\u00e9e Jones Schneider\/Minnesota Star Tribune via AP)<\/p>\n
Ren\u00e9e Jones Schneider\/Ren\u00c3\u00a9e Jones Schneider\/Minnesota<\/p>\n
FILE – Tear gas surrounds federal law enforcement officers as they leave a scene after a shooting on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
John Locher\/AP Photo\/John Locher<\/p>\n
FILE – Law enforcement officers at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
Adam Gray\/AP Photo\/Adam Gray<\/p>\n
FILE – Protesters confront law enforcement at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
Abbie Parr\/AP Photo\/Abbie Parr<\/p>\n
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 A federal immigration officer wanted in the shooting of a Venezuelan man during the Trump administration\u2019s Minnesota crackdown was arrested Friday in Texas, authorities said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Christian Castro, of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, was taken into custody 11 days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Hennepin County, Minnesota prosecutors said the state\u2019s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension located Castro, 52, in Texas and worked with the Texas Rangers and agents from the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Office of Inspector General to arrest him.<\/p>\n
The Office of Inspector General, however, denied any involvement.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the office said it \u201cwas not involved in the planning, execution, or conduct” of Castro\u2019s arrest and that \u201cany characterization that DHS OIG agents participated in or led the arrest operation is inaccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDHS OIG did not serve as an arresting agency in this matter,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for the Hennepin County Attorney’s office. Messages seeking comment were also left with ICE and the Texas Rangers.<\/p>\n
Online court records do not list an attorney for Castro and it wasn’t immediately clear if he has one.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty heralded the arrest as \u201ca critical step forward in our prosecution of Mr. Castro.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castro is the second federal agent to be charged over their conduct during the Minnesota crackdown, which was known as Operation Metro Surge. He is one of two agents that ICE Director Todd Lyons said lied about the circumstances of the incident.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
According to prosecutors, Castro fired through a home\u2019s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S., Moriarty said.<\/p>\n
Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether officers lied about what happened.<\/p>\n
In a statement after the charges were announced, ICE said the U.S. attorney\u2019s office was investigating statements made by officers, who could face disciplinary action including being fired and prosecuted. ICE called the Hennepin County attorney\u2019s action \u201cunlawful and nothing more than a political stunt.\u201d DHS’s Inspector General’s Office, which Moriarty credited with assisting in the arrest, is separate from ICE and is meant to serve as a watchdog for DHS agencies, including ICE.<\/p>\n
Minneapolis last month released video showing the moments before Sosa-Celis\u2019s shooting, captured from a distance by a city-owned security camera.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
The video appears to show a person standing with a snow shovel outside the house, near the street, then retreating toward the house and tossing the shovel into the yard. This happens as a person being chased by another person runs up from the street, falls on the sidewalk, gets up, and keeps heading toward the house.<\/p>\n
The three appear to scuffle near the front steps for about 10 seconds. The exact moment when Sosa-Celis is shot isn\u2019t clear. A car with flashing lights pulls up, and another person walks up.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration sent thousands of officers to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area as part of President Donald Trump\u2019s national deportation campaign and considered Operation Metro Surge a success.<\/p>\n
But tensions mounted during the weekslong campaign, and the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers sparked mass unrest and raised questions about officers\u2019 conduct.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Minnesota leaders and the Trump administration have clashed over who has the authority to investigate and prosecute federal officers for on-duty conduct.<\/p>\n
Moriarty\u2019s office last month charged immigration agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car on a highway. He turned himself in last week and his lawyer disputes the charges.<\/p>\n
The county is also investigating Good\u2019s and Pretti\u2019s killings and sued the Trump administration in March to gain access to evidence in those cases and the Sosa-Celis shooting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – Federal immigration officers at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[58529,108595,88427,108596,85744,145,108594,113131,108593,12811,113130,11728,23681,59373,86704,59370,59371,59372,51248,27,29,28,113132],"class_list":["post-314489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-alex-pretti","tag-alfredo-alejandro-aljorna","tag-ap-test","tag-christian-castro","tag-chrontexas","tag-donald-trump","tag-gregory-donnell-morgan-jr","tag-julio-cesar-sosa-celis","tag-mary-moriarty","tag-minneapolis","tag-minneapolis-immigration-crackdown-arrest-sosacelis","tag-minnesota","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30065-ap-minnesota-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30109-ap-texas-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-renee-good","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-todd-lyons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}