ICE agent Christian Castro Released From Texas Jail After Minnesota Loses Court Fight
New York Times · LC · trust 50/100
The state had sought to have the agent extradited from Texas to answer charges in Minneapolis related to an on-duty shooting that wounded an immigrant.
Listen · 4:11 min Share full article 329 Christian Castro was one of thousands of agents sent to Minnesota in the winter as part of the Trump administration’s deportation campaign. Credit... David Guttenfelder/The New York Times By Mitch Smith and Ernesto Londoño
Ernesto Londoño reported from Brownsville, Texas.
The officer, Christian Castro of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had been jailed for the last three months in Cameron County, Texas, while Minnesota officials sought to have him sent north to face assault charges related to a shooting in January that wounded a Venezuelan immigrant.
Sheriff Manuel Trevino of Cameron County said Mr. Castro was released just before 7 a.m. local time.
The case has tested the limits of state powers in an era of deep political mistrust.
It is rare for federal agents to face state criminal charges for on-duty conduct, and the Trump administration has argued that the charges Minnesota prosecutors have filed against Mr. Castro are illegitimate. It is also exceedingly rare for one governor not to act on a request from another to extradite a criminal defendant, as Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has done.
Because Mr. Castro did not agree to leave Texas, where he lives, Minnesota officials needed Mr. Abbott to approve a request to extradite him. But Mr. Abbott, a Republican, has so far declined to act on the request from Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a Democrat. Because Texas law limits detention in extradition cases to 90 days, Mr. Castro had to be freed on Thursday.
Minnesota officials have said they were worried that Mr. Castro would flee to Mexico if he was released, and they filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to force the Texas governor to act. But Mr. Abbott’s lawyers said he needed more time to determine whether Mr. Castro was eligible for extradition. The judge sided with Texas on Wednesday, finding that there was no proof that Mr. Abbott was acting in bad faith.
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