Minneapolis (KB) - An arrest warrant is just paper until someone is willing to put the power of the state behind it. Minnesota had wanted Christian Castro in court for months. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott refused to extradite him. Castro was released again. On Wednesday, that chapter ended in downtown Minneapolis: Officers with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension arrested the ICE officer on the still-active warrant. On Thursday, he was being held without bail in the Hennepin County Jail, waiting for his appearance before a state judge.
The case goes back to January, right into the middle of Operation Metro Surge, the massive immigration enforcement operation launched by President Donald Trump's administration in the Minneapolis and Saint Paul area. During that operation, 24-year-old Venezuelan Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis was shot in the leg. Prosecutors accuse Castro of firing through the front door of a house and hitting Sosa-Celis. Afterward, he allegedly told investigators that men had attacked him with a broom handle and a snow shovel before he fired his weapon.
Read also our article: Further Successes Against ICE - The Christian Castro Case and the Cracks in Trump’s Deportation Crackdown
The shooting led to 2 criminal cases. The state of Minnesota has charged Castro with assault and falsely reporting a crime. At the federal level, he has been charged with making false statements to investigators. His attorneys in the federal case said Castro would plead not guilty. Daniel Gerdts, listed in court records as his attorney in the Minnesota case, did not immediately respond Thursday to phone calls or emails. The 2 cases look at the same incident from different directions. Minnesota is pursuing the allegations surrounding the shooting at the front door and the allegedly false report. The federal government is dealing with Castro's statements to investigators about that shooting. The same minutes from January are now before 2 court systems, while the question of jurisdiction between Minnesota and the federal government has been fought over for months.
The sequence explains that fight. Minnesota had charged Castro months before the federal indictment. In May, he was arrested in Texas on the Minnesota charges. Then, in August, Abbott refused to sign the extradition warrant. Castro was released. Shortly afterward, the federal indictment followed. He turned himself in to federal authorities and then returned to Minnesota on his own. The old arrest warrant was still waiting for him there.
On Wednesday, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension moved in and arrested Castro in Minneapolis before he was due to appear for a separate hearing in the federal case. His Minnesota court hearing was scheduled for Thursday. Castro is set to appear Friday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis. The shooting is now being dealt with in 2 court systems, and between them sits a fight that has long since reached Washington.
The Department of Homeland Security said Minnesota's prosecution was unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt. It said only federal authorities had jurisdiction to prosecute Castro. Minnesota is standing by its charges. For months, competing views of government jurisdiction faced off while the man at the center of the case was sitting in Texas for a time and was eventually released. Law has borders on maps. Whether a badge rises above those borders is now for the courts to decide.
The federal case carries its own weight. Castro's indictment is the Justice Department's 1st prosecution of a federal officer for actions taken during Operation Metro Surge. The operation brought thousands of federal officers into the greater Minneapolis and Saint Paul area. It led to massive protests and numerous arrests. 2 U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal officers in separate incidents. Castro's case involves a nonfatal shooting, but it belongs to the same period of an immigration operation whose consequences have long since reached the courts.
Prosecutors paint a straightforward picture of that January evening: Castro allegedly fired through a front door and wounded Sosa-Celis in the leg. He then allegedly told investigators that he had been attacked with a broom handle and a snow shovel. Whether those statements were criminally false and how the shooting should be judged under the law are questions the respective courts will have to decide. Castro is presumed innocent.
Minnesota had to take a long way around to get there. First came the charges, then the arrest in Texas. After that came Abbott's refusal and Castro's release. Now the ICE officer is back in custody, this time in the place where the case against him began. An arrest warrant can get stuck at a border. That does not mean it disappears.
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