A federal immigration officer has been charged with assault for shooting a Venezuelan man during the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota this winter.
Christian Castro, 52, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, faces four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime in connection with the January 14 shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis. A nationwide warrant has been issued for Castro's arrest.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced the charges at a news conference, emphasizing that federal employment does not shield officers from state prosecution. "There's no modern precedent for what happened to the people here in Minnesota," Moriarty said, referring to the broader violence during the immigration crackdown.
Sosa-Celis was struck in the leg and survived. He was one of three people shot by federal agents during "Operation Metro Surge" in Minnesota. Two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed during the same enforcement campaign.
The circumstances surrounding Sosa-Celis's shooting drew immediate scrutiny. Federal agents encountered him after pursuing another Venezuelan man, Alfredo Aljorna, who fled in a vehicle, crashed into a snowbank, and ran toward his home. Sosa-Celis was standing outside with a snow shovel when agents arrived.
Federal authorities initially claimed Sosa-Celis attacked agents with the shovel and a broom. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called it "an attempted murder of federal law enforcement," and prosecutors charged Sosa-Celis with assaulting a federal agent. But those charges were dropped after the U.S. attorney's office found evidence "materially inconsistent" with testimony from preliminary hearings.
Video released by Minneapolis showed Sosa-Celis dropping the shovel and both men running inside as an agent fired in their direction. The charges against Aljorna were also dismissed.
The investigation faced obstacles when federal agencies declined to share information with state prosecutors, hampering the county's initial inquiry. The dispute reflects broader tension between Minnesota officials and the Trump administration over jurisdiction and accountability for officers' conduct during duty.
State officials have expressed skepticism about federal self-investigation, while the Trump administration has suggested Minnesota lacks authority to prosecute federal officers. Moriarty's office continues investigating Good's and Pretti's deaths and filed suit in March seeking access to evidence in all three cases.
The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. DHS has previously stated that false testimony constitutes a serious federal offense that could result in firing or prosecution.
Author James Rodriguez: "Federal agents claiming a man with a shovel attempted murder, then dropping the charges when video surfaced, exposes how Operation Metro Surge operated with a dangerous hand-free approach to accountability until state prosecutors stepped in."
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