A federal immigration agent charged in connection with an on-duty shooting in Minnesota will not waive extradition from Texas, his lawyer told a judge on Thursday, raising more doubt about when and if he will answer charges in a Minneapolis courtroom.
The agent, Christian J. Castro, was arrested and jailed last week in Texas on assault charges filed last month in Minnesota state court. His refusal to waive extradition raises the stakes of a case that was already testing local prosecutors’ ability to seek criminal consequences for federal officers accused of wrongdoing.
The charges stem from one of three shootings involving federal agents during the Trump administration’s surge of agents to Minnesota over the winter. Federal officials have called the Minnesota prosecution “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt.”
Salvador Garcia, who was Mr. Castro’s court-appointed lawyer for the hearing, said after the hearing that he had not discussed the facts of the Minnesota case with his client.
Mr. Castro wore a jail uniform during the brief hearing in state court in Brownsville, a city along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Mr. Garcia and a court administrator. Judge Gabriela Garcia of the State District Court in Cameron County set bail at $200,000 for Mr. Castro, the same amount set by a Minnesota court.
Mr. Castro could be released from the Texas jail if he posts bail, according to Mr. Garcia and the court administrator. Mr. Garcia said he did not know if his client intended to post that money.
Because he did not waive extradition, getting Mr. Castro to appear in a Minnesota courtroom will most likely require Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a Democrat, to make a formal request to Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican.
Such requests are routine when a defendant is arrested in another state. Defendants can contest an extradition, though they generally have narrow grounds to do so if they are the person being sought. In Mr. Castro’s case, federal officials have raised questions about the legality of a state prosecution of a federal agent for on-duty conduct. It was not clear whether this extradition case would play out like most others.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement on Thursday that “this is a federal issue, and it must be handled at the federal level.”
Asked previously about Mr. Castro’s case, Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesman for Mr. Abbott, said that federal agents perform a dangerous job enforcing immigration laws and that the governor would “always support those who uphold the rule of law.” Mr. Mahaleris did not say how Mr. Abbott would handle an extradition request for Mr. Castro.
Officials with the Minnesota governor’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Thursday. The Texas governor’s office declined to comment.
Mr. Castro, 52, was among thousands of federal agents sent to Minnesota last winter by the Trump administration in an immigration crackdown that led to thousands of arrests and tense face-offs with protesters. Agents shot three people during that campaign in Minnesota, including two U.S. citizens who were killed.
Mr. Castro is charged in the shooting of Julio C. Sosa-Celis, who is from Venezuela, on Jan. 14 after a confrontation in Minneapolis. Mr. Sosa-Celis, who federal officials said was in the country illegally, was shot in the leg and later released from the hospital.
The agents involved in the shooting had previously been suspended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and placed under federal investigation.
Mr. Castro was the second immigration agent to be charged in Hennepin County after the Trump administration’s enforcement surge. In April, prosecutors in that county, which includes Minneapolis, charged another agent, Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., with assault, accusing him of pointing a gun at motorists along a state highway.
Mr. Morgan traveled to Minnesota last month to be arraigned and appeared before a judge. He was released after he posted bail.
Mr. Castro was arrested last week in Texas, where his lawyer said he lives, by investigators from the Texas Rangers, Minnesota officials said.
The Minnesota assault charges carry a minimum prison sentence of three years if he is convicted.
Minnesota prosecutors have acknowledged that they face formidable practical and legal challenges in prosecuting federal agents for on-duty conduct. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution gives federal officials broad immunity from state prosecution, but Minnesota officials say those protections are not absolute. If Mr. Castro’s case is moved to federal court, Mary Moriarty, the Hennepin County attorney, said her office would continue to pursue the prosecution there.
In the immediate wake of the shooting of Mr. Sosa-Celis, federal officials defended the agents, saying they had been attacked with a broom and shovel. Kristi Noem, who was then the secretary of homeland security, described it as “an attempted murder of federal law enforcement.” Within days, Mr. Sosa-Celis and a housemate, Alfredo A. Aljorna, who was also from Venezuela and involved in the confrontation, were charged with federal felonies.
But aspects of the government’s account soon began to unravel. The charges against both men were dropped, and federal officials said they were instead investigating the agents. Video footage of the incident obtained by The New York Times did not show a sustained attack with a shovel and more broadly contradicted the agent’s claim of a roughly three-minute beating. The encounter lasted about 12 seconds, the video showed.
Federal officials have not confirmed that Mr. Castro fired the shot that wounded Mr. Sosa-Celis. The F.B.I. excluded state officials from the investigation after an initial interview with another agent who was at the scene, prosecutors said.
In a pending federal lawsuit, Minnesota’s attorney general and the Hennepin County attorney, both Democrats, have taken the unusual step of asking a judge to make the U.S. government provide evidence from all three shootings this winter involving federal agents.
Ernesto Londoño contributed reporting.
Mitch Smith is a Chicago-based national correspondent for The Times, covering the Midwest and Great Plains.
The post ICE Agent Charged in Minnesota Shooting Does Not Agree to Leave Texas appeared first on New York Times.
