ICE Officer Castro Is Arrested and Jailed in Minneapolis After Months of Evading Custody

On Sept. 16, 2026, Minnesota agents arrested ICE officer Christian Castro in downtown Minneapolis and booked him into the Hennepin County Jail on an outstanding warrant, Reuters reported. Castro faces state charges of assault and falsely reporting a crime for shooting Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan national, in the leg through his apartment door on Jan. 14 while children were inside, plus a federal indictment for lying about the incident. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had refused to extradite Castro after DHS reassigned him to Texas, and Castro spent 90 days in a Texas jail before his release; he then drove voluntarily to Minneapolis to surrender.

The case is the first Justice Department prosecution of a federal officer for conduct arising from "Operation Metro Surge," the Minneapolis ICE deployment that drew weeks of protests and included the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal agents. Abbott's refusal to extradite the officer, and DOJ's earlier move to block federal civil rights charges against Castro, had raised questions about accountability for ICE conduct during the crackdown.

Castro remains suspended from ICE pending a civil rights investigation. He was expected to face his first state court appearance Thursday, then a federal arraignment Friday.