Overview
- Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday asking a judge to require Gov. Greg Abbott to sign extradition papers for ICE agent Christian Castro and to bar the Cameron County sheriff from releasing him.
- Castro was charged by Hennepin County on May 18 with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime and was arrested in Cameron County, Texas, on May 29 where he remains in custody.
- Prosecutors say surveillance video and witness statements contradicted Castro’s claim that he was attacked before he fired through a Minneapolis door, evidence that led federal prosecutors to drop related charges against two men and prompted ICE to place Castro on leave.
- Minnesota officials warn that Texas law permits a detainee held on an out-of-state warrant to be released after 90 days, a deadline that would fall in late August and which they say makes Castro a flight risk because he is jailed near the U.S.–Mexico border.
- The lawsuit cites the Constitution’s Extradition Clause and the 1987 Supreme Court ruling in Puerto Rico v. Branstad that federal courts can compel governors to comply, and the case could set a test of how governors’ duties are enforced across partisan lines.