Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announces a lawsuit on March 24, 2026, against the Trump administration seeking evidence in the shootings of three people by federal immigration agents. On Wednesday, a federal judge denied Minnesota’s extradition request of an ICE agent Christian Castro charged in a Jan. 14 shooting in north Minneapolis. (Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer)
ST. PAUL, Minn. (Minnesota Reformer) – A federal judge in Texas on Wednesday denied the state of Minnesota’s extradition request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Christian Castro, who is charged in the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in north Minneapolis in January.
The ruling means Castro is likely to be released from a Texas jail.
Hennepin County issued a warrant for Castro’s arrest on May 18, and he was arrested by Texas Rangers, a state law enforcement agency, on May 29. Since then, Castro has been incarcerated in a county jail and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declined to sign the paperwork ordering his extradition to Minnesota.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison sued Abbott on Aug. 18 under a federal law prohibiting law enforcement agencies from detaining fugitives awaiting extradition for longer than 90 days. Ellison asked the judge to require Abbott to sign the extradition papers, or at least block Castro’s release, ahead of the 90-day deadline on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. of the Southern District of Texas did neither, denying Ellison’s request outright.
“This case should concern officials and citizens of every state,” Ellison said in a statement Wednesday. “If a governor can delay extraditions and cherry-pick cases according to their political tastes, then no state will be able to hold fugitive criminals accountable.”
Rodriguez Jr. ruled that Abbott has not violated the Constitution, the Extradition Act or the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act.
“Those statutes prescribe no deadline for a governor of the asylum state to complete an investigation and either sign a rendition warrant or deny the request,” Rodriguez Jr. wrote in his order.
Ellison had argued that governors have no discretion when it comes to facilitating extraditions.
A unanimous 1987 Supreme Court ruling said “the commands of the Extradition Clause are mandatory, and afford no discretion to the executive officers or courts of the asylum state.”
Rodriguez Jr. cited a section of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, a state law in Minnesota and Texas, which authorizes the governor of the asylum state to call on authorities in the demanding state to investigate the circumstances of the subject of the extradition request, and whether he ought to be surrendered.
The Extradition Act also allows governors to consider “whether the petitioner is a fugitive.”
Abbott’s office argued that Castro is not a fugitive because he didn’t flee Minnesota — he was reassigned to Texas by ICE.
Castro is charged with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime. He is accused of firing his gun through the closed front door of a Minneapolis home, hitting Cesar-Solis in the leg. Three other people were inside the house, according to Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, and one of the bullets was found embedded in the wall of a child’s bedroom.
Castro is also charged with falsely reporting a crime because he accused Sosa-Celis and another Venezuelan immigrant of assaulting him with a broom and a snow shovel before Castro opened fire. The U.S. Department of Justice charged the two immigrant men with assaulting a federal agent, but the charges were dropped after surveillance footage disproved Castro’s claims.
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