Minnesota AG Ellison announces lawsuit against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over extradition of ICE agent
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Tuesday announced he is suing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over the extradition of an immigration agent accused of shooting a man in Minneapolis.
Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty previously sent letters to Abbott asking him to sign extradition paperwork for Christian Castro, the ICE agent accused of shooting a man in the leg in north Minneapolis in January. Castro is charged with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime. According to Moriarty, Texas Rangers arrested him on May 29 and he has been held at the Cameron County Jail ever since.
Moriarty and Ellison repeatedly stressed that extradition requests are intended to be administrative, and an apparent refusal like Abbott's is extremely rare, if not unprecedented.
"We have never heard of anything taking this long because it is an administrative process," Moriarty said. "It is not supposed to be controversial."
Ellison's letter to Abbott set a deadline of 5 p.m. on Monday, and threatened legal action if he did not comply.
"Christian Castro's not above the law," Ellison said, "and Greg Abbott isn't either."
Abbott's office told WCCO it "will not comment on pending extradition matters."
The lawsuit also seeks a temporary restraining order to bar the Cameron County Sheriff's Office from releasing Castro. Ellison said Texas has a 90-day limit on the detention of fugitives awaiting extradition.
"This means that as early as Aug. 26, a week from tomorrow, 90 days after he was first captured and detained, Christian Castro could walk free from jail in Texas and flee justice in Minnesota, including by leaving the country," Ellison said.
Castro is a flight risk in the estimation of both Ellison and Moriarty.
"He did not turn himself in, he did not make himself available to the Texas authorities so that we could start this process, so those are indications to us that he is a flight risk," Moriarty said.
Moriarty said in the last five years, there have been more than 30 successful extradition requests between Texas and Minnesota. Since Castro's arrest, Abbott has signed three other extradition requests from Minnesota, she said.
Democratic Texas Reps. Sylvia Garcia and Vicente Gonzalez have also urged Abbott to authorize Castro's extradition.
Charges say Castro lied about the shooting, claiming he was attacked by two people with a shovel and a broomstick before he fired. According to a criminal complaint, Castro's version of the events "is contradicted by the video of the incident," four other accounts from those involved and physical evidence.
Moriarty's office has charged another ICE agent, Gregory Morgan Jr., with second-degree assault after he allegedly pointed a gun at two people on a Twin Cities highway in February.
