Christian Castro, a federal immigration officer, was arrested Friday in Texas on charges stemming from a January shooting that left a Venezuelan man wounded during a contentious federal enforcement operation in Minnesota.
Castro, 52, had been wanted since Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime in connection with the non-fatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis on January 14. The Hennepin County attorney's office, working with federal investigators from the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general and Texas Rangers, located and apprehended him after an 11-day manhunt.
"Today's arrest is a critical step forward in our prosecution of Mr Castro," Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement.
Castro fired through the front door of a Minneapolis duplex and struck Sosa-Celis in the thigh as officers pursued a different suspect, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the residence. Both residents were legally present in the United States.
The confrontation unfolded as part of Operation Metro Surge, an intensive federal crackdown that brought thousands of immigration enforcement officers to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area under the Trump administration's deportation initiative. The operation quickly became controversial after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, sparking widespread protests and raising serious questions about officer conduct and accountability.
Federal authorities initially claimed that Sosa-Celis and Aljorna had attacked an officer with a broom handle and snow shovel. A federal judge later dismissed those charges, prompting the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department to launch investigations into whether officers had fabricated their account of events.
Video released by Minneapolis last month provided crucial evidence. The footage, captured by a city-owned security camera, shows a person with a snow shovel near the house retreating as another individual runs toward the residence. The three figures then scuffle near the front steps for roughly 10 seconds. The exact moment of the shooting remains unclear in the recording.
Castro is the second ICE agent to face criminal charges for conduct during the Minnesota operation. Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., another immigration officer, was charged with assault for allegedly brandishing a weapon at occupants of a vehicle on a highway. Morgan turned himself in the following week, with his lawyer denying the allegations.
ICE's director, Todd Lyons, acknowledged that both Castro and another agent had provided false accounts of the incident. The agency said the U.S. attorney's office was investigating statements made by officers who could face discipline up to and including termination and prosecution.
The arrest intensified an already tense dispute between Minnesota's elected leadership and the Trump administration over jurisdiction and authority in investigating federal officers' conduct during their official duties. Moriarty's office is also investigating the deaths of Good and Pretti, and the county has sued the Trump administration to access evidence related to those cases and the Sosa-Celis shooting.
ICE responded to the charges by calling the Hennepin County attorney's action "unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt," dismissing the prosecution as overreach. The DHS inspector general's office, which assisted in Castro's arrest, operates independently from ICE as an internal watchdog.
Author James Rodriguez: "When federal officers falsify reports about their own actions, the system designed to hold them accountable has to work, or it fails everyone."
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