{"id":410329,"date":"2026-08-19T00:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T00:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/410329\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T00:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T00:58:12","slug":"minnesota-official-sues-texas-governor-to-force-ice-agents-extradition-migration-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/410329\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota official sues Texas governor to force ICE agent\u2019s extradition | Migration News"},"content":{"rendered":"

State Attorney General Keith Ellison has called for the transfer of an ICE agent accused of lying about a nonfatal shooting.<\/p>\n

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Published On 18 Aug 202618 Aug 2026<\/p>\n

Minnesota\u2019s attorney general is suing the governor of Texas to force the extradition of a federal agent charged with shooting and wounding a man during President Donald Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison argued that Texas Governor Greg Abbott has refused to fulfil his \u201cmandatory\u201d obligation to transfer Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Christian Castro, so that he may stand trial.<\/p>\n

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\u201cGovernor Abbott has withheld the warrant and held up Castro\u2019s extradition for nearly three months,\u201d Ellison told reporters on Tuesday. \u201cHe has no discretion to decline to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellison also asked the US district court in southern Texas to bar Cameron County Sheriff Manuel Trevino from allowing Castro\u2019s release from jail.<\/p>\n

Castro\u2019s case has become part of a national debate over transparency and excessive violence during Trump\u2019s mass deportation campaign.<\/p>\n

The agent was involved in the January 14 shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan man living in Minnesota. Officials allege that Castro fired a gun into Sosa-Celis\u2019s front door, striking him in the leg.<\/p>\n

Initially, the Trump administration said the agents had fired in self-defence, accusing Sosa-Celis and two other people of attacking officers with a broom and a snow shovel during an immigration enforcement operation.<\/p>\n

Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem went so far as to call the incident the \u201cattempted murder\u201d of an ICE agent.<\/p>\n

But video emerged contradicting the ICE agents\u2019 testimony, and in February, federal prosecutors dropped the charges<\/a> they had filed against Sosa-Celis and his housemate, Alfredo Aljorna.<\/p>\n

In a statement that month, ICE\u2019s then-Acting Director Todd Lyons confirmed that Castro and a second ICE agent appeared to have lied about the incident. The two officers were subsequently placed on administrative leave.<\/p>\n

\u201cA joint review by ICE and the Department of Justice (DOJ) of video evidence has revealed that sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements,\u201d Lyons said in a statement at the time.<\/p>\n

In May, the Hennepin County Attorney\u2019s Office charged Castro with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Castro is an ICE agent. But his federal badge does not make him immune from state charges for his criminal conduct in Minnesota,\u201d Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Castro was arrested on May 29 in Texas, and he has remained in detention since.<\/p>\n

But Ellison has expressed concern that Texas officials \u2013 including Abbott, an ally of President Trump \u2013 could seek Castro\u2019s release rather than have him face trial.<\/p>\n

The Minnesota attorney general described Castro as a flight risk, likely to flee across the US border to Mexico.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that [Castro] has some connections to Mexico, and we know that he has some thought of at some point going to Mexico,\u201d Ellison said. \u201cSo, we do believe he\u2019s a risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abbott\u2019s office told The Associated Press in a statement that it would not comment on \u201cpending extradition matters\u201d.<\/p>\n

Under Texas law, Ellison said the 52-year-old Castro could be released from custody as soon as next week \u2013 90 days after he was detained \u2013 if Abbott does not agree to his extradition.<\/p>\n

The Sosa-Celis shooting was one of several cases this year that prompted questions about the use of deadly force during immigration proceedings.<\/p>\n

The Minneapolis area was the subject of one of Trump\u2019s most intense immigration enforcement campaigns, dubbed Operation Metro Surge.<\/p>\n

Lasting from December to February, Operation Metro Surge saw what critics considered to be escalating tactics from immigration officials, including warrantless house searches.<\/p>\n

Two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretty, were killed by agents during protests against the operation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State Attorney General Keith Ellison has called for the transfer of an ICE agent accused of lying about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[145,406,5603,6354,223,672,287,27,29,28,464,7454],"class_list":["post-410329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-donald-trump","tag-government","tag-gun-violence","tag-migration","tag-news","tag-police","tag-politics","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410329","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=410329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}