Minnesota sues Texas governor over delayed handover of ICE agent charged in shooting

MINNEAPOLIS — The state of Minnesota sued Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in federal court on Tuesday over a nearly three-month delay in extraditing Christian Castro, the federal agent accused of shooting Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in north Minneapolis during Operation Metro Surge and later lying about it.

In a news conference announcing the suit, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty cast Abbott’s delay as unprecedented and political. Ellison said that Abbott had honored every extradition warrant requested by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz during his time in office, “until today,” and said the Texas governor is sending a clear sign that he has no intention to sign the extradition paperwork.

“We have to take the position that they are refusing to honor the extradition request,” Ellison said.

In the lawsuit, Ellison asks the Texas federal court to compel Abbott to issue the warrant and direct law enforcement to deliver Castro to Minnesota authorities. Underscoring the urgency of the request, the attorney general pointed to Texas law that caps a fugitive’s detention at 90 days, making Castro eligible for release on Aug. 26.

Moriarty said the lack of a governor’s signature on extradition paperwork is so abnormal there’s hardly any legal precedent.

“I don’t think we can emphasize this enough, extradition is a routine administrative process,” she said. “It isn’t about politics. It is the law.”

Castro has been held in the Cameron County jail near the Mexican border since being arrested on May 29 by the Texas Rangers. Ellison said that Walz requested Abbott sign Castro’s extradition paperwork days later. On July 30, Moriarty sent a letter to Abbott requesting his signature on the extradition paperwork.

Ellison and Moriarty said no meaningful response has come from the Texas governor.

When asked about Castro’s extradition on Tuesday, Abbott’s press coordinator Agathe Cirasa said: “The Office of the Governor will not comment on pending extradition matters.”

Castro was charged by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office on May 18 with four felony counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and one misdemeanor count of falsely reporting a crime for the chaotic situation that developed in north Minneapolis on Jan. 14 after Castro allegedly shot Sosa-Celis.

A nationwide search warrant was issued the same day he was charged, and in her late-May letter, Moriarty pushed Abbott to return Castro to Minnesota.

“The final step is for you as the Governor to sign the extradition paperwork so that we can proceed with the case in Minnesota,” Moriarty wrote.

The federal lawsuit seeks to force the hand of Abbott, a Republican who is seeking a fourth term as governor in Texas and is locked in a tight race with Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee. The suit names Abbott and Cameron County Sheriff Manuel Trevino as defendants.

The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that federal courts have the authority to enforce extraditions between states and it is not up to the discretion of state governments. Texas law, however, seems to give the governor more discretion.

That Supreme Court opinion came after two different governors in Iowa refused to honor a request from the governor of Puerto Rico to extradite an Iowa resident who had been charged with murder.

In a unanimous opinion, the court ruled that the Extradition Clause of the U.S. Constitution clearly stipulated that states had to turn over fugitives to other states. That decision overturned an 1861 Supreme Court opinion that had given governors discretion over extradition when the nation was on the edge of civil war.

“This decision has stood while the world of which it was a part has passed away,” wrote Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1987. “We conclude that it may stand no longer.”

The Texas Code of Criminal Procedure states that Abbott has the authority to investigate any extradition request made by “the Executive Authority of another state.” That can include having the Texas Secretary of State, Attorney General or “any prosecuting officer” investigate the demand and report back to the governor on whether the defendant should be surrendered to another state.

Minnesota’s lawsuit argues that both states routinely handled extraditions between each other, making the delay of Castro’s extradition unusual. In the last five years, Minnesota has sought the extradition of 11 people charged with crimes from Texas, all of whom had had warrants signed within an average of 30 days, the suit states.

Last week, several Texas Democrats demanded that Abbott extradite Castro to Minnesota.

In a statement attached to the demand, U.S. Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia said Abbott could not give Castro special treatment or delay amid concerns over how the Trump administration is handling immigration enforcement throughout the country.

“We have watched this administration’s out-of-control immigration enforcement turn deadly, while official accounts unravel as the facts come out,” Garcia said. “We saw it in Minneapolis and Maine, and we are seeing it here in Houston as we demand the truth about ICE’s killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. Governor Abbott should sign the extradition paperwork and let the justice system do its job.”

The shooting of Sosa-Celis came in the midst of Operation Metro Surge, exactly one week after Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross. It set off a chaotic night of protests in north Minneapolis.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, then-DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Sosa-Celis and his roommate, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna “began to resist and violently assault the officer” and that Castro — whom they never identified — fired a defensive shot while on the ground because he feared for his life.

Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were charged federally. Gabriel Alejandro Hernandez-Ledezma, a third man who lived in a different part of the duplex and had nothing to do with the situation, was publicly identified as attacking the officer and sent to Texas. He was detained for weeks without charges. Two women in the home, who had no criminal record and were never accused of a crime, were shackled and sent to a Texas detention facility where they remained for two weeks, separated from their two small children.

That initial narrative of the shooting, provided by Castro and another ICE agent and amplified by the Trump administration, unraveled when city security footage of the shooting was turned over to the BCA and showed the agents had lied about what happened.

All charges against Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were later dropped.

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