Judge denies Minnesota’s bid to compel the extradition of an ICE officer from Texas

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday 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.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. wrote in an order that he couldn’t prevent a county sheriff from releasing Christian Castro or order Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to sign his extradition warrant.

The Cameron County sheriff said he would release Castro at midnight.

Castro is charged in Minnesota with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 shooting of 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.

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.

After a Minnesota judge issued a nationwide warrant for Castro’s arrest in May, authorities, including Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, arrested Castro in Cameron County on May 29. 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.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a request for a temporary restraining order last week seeking to block Castro’s release or to order his return to Minnesota.

Texas attorneys on Tuesday argued the judge could not rule on a decision that’s still pending. Abbott has not denied the extradition. Instead he is waiting for the outcome of an internal state investigation considering whether Castro was legally a “fugitive” under the Extradition Clause, the lawyers said.

The judge wrote in Wednesday’s order that the court can’t yet step in.

“The Court concludes that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction because the case is not ripe for adjudication,” the order read. “Minnesota cannot premise its causes of action on the allegation that Governor Abbott may violate those authorities in the future; it must prove that a violation has already occurred.”

The judge said in his order that the extradition laws do not outline how long the Texas governor can take to make that decision.

Ellison said in a statement that his office would keep litigating the case but didn’t specify what it would do next.

“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.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, whose office handles prosecutions in Minneapolis, said at a new conference that Abbott was unfairly harboring the former ICE agent.

“If Christian Castro walks out of the door of the jail tomorrow and disappears into Mexico, it will be the fault of one person: Governor Greg Abbott,” Moriarty said.

Abbott’s press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris, welcomed the ruling and said it was the governor’s duty to carefully consider the merits of extradition requests.

“Today’s order rebuffs Minnesota’s efforts to conscript federal courts into commandeering the authority of Governor Abbott’s office,” Mahaleris said in a statement.

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.

Minnesota officials say 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.

The judge conceded that Castro could flee the country but added that “the threat of injury by itself does not create an issue ripe for adjudication.”