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A Trump-appointed federal judge delivered a setback to Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and far-left Attorney General Keith Ellison on Wednesday when he refused to force Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to return an ICE officer charged in connection with a shooting that occurred during an immigration operation.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, Jr. for the Southern District of Texas denied Minnesota’s request for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against Governor Abbott and Cameron County Sheriff Manuel Trevino in regards to their attempt to force Abbott to sign a rendition warrant for the ICE officer’s extradition and to keep him in jail past the 90 day statutory detention period.
Appointed by President Donald Trump in 2018 to the Southern District of Texas, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. indicated that he thought the matter was “not ripe” for federal court adjudication because the Extradition Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act did not set a particular deadline by which action was required to be taken.
The lawsuit before the federal court is based upon the attorney general’s and governor’s speculation as to future actions which may or may not occur. Importantly, Governor Abbott has neither agreed to nor refused to honor the Minnesota request for extradition of Mr. Castro. Rather, the Governor has done exactly what the law permits him to do with respect to determining whether a person is a “fugitive” from justice, that is, he referred the matter to the Texas Secretary of State for investigation and determination under the provisions of Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 51.13 § 4.
Additionally, the court in this matter has ordered, pursuant to Articles 51.05 and 51.07 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, that a person who has been arrested on an out-of-state extradition warrant be discharged from custody if no governor’s rendition warrant for extradition has been issued within 90 days of said arrest. Therefore, according to Texas law, Christian Castro will be released from the Brownsville, Texas jail on August 27, 2026. In determining that Castro not be held for fear of flight, the federal court has determined that the potential for said risk does not supersede the laws of the State of Texas.
Minnesota’s evidence in this regard consisted of a recorded jail call in which Castro apparently said he would leave for Mexico if he were to be released from the Brownsville, Texas jail where he is currently being held.
Judge Rodriguez seemed skeptical of the basis for the Governor’s theory that the officer is not a fugitive, noting that under Roberts v. Reilly and Hyatt v. New York, a fugitive is merely someone who has committed a crime in one state and then left that state, whether voluntarily or at the direction of an employer. He acknowledged that the officer had been sent to MN by ICE, but was now in TX.
Castro, 52, was charged with four counts of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon and one count of making false report of a crime in connection with the January 14 confrontation with three men outside an immigration enforcement operation in the Twin Cities. The men, wielding a snow shovel and a broom handle, attacked an officer, who fired a “defensive shot,” DHS said. One of the men was struck in the thigh by a bullet and later hospitalized. DHS is also investigating what it describes as “untruthful statements” made by the officers involved in the operation after reviewing video of the incident.
The Justice Department is reportedly mulling charges in connection with the shooting.
Though Christian Castro is set to be released from the Cameron County Jail at the end of the 90-day detention period, Minnesota officials, led by Governor Walz, will have had their attempts at forcing the Texas officials to detain the ICE officer stymied by the federal court’s determination of the scope of their ability to interfere with the constitutional and statutory process for extradition of individuals traveling from state to state as fugitives.
With the 90-day clock now running down to zero, it now appears that Castro’s release will have to await the outcome of Governor Abbott’s administrative review of the matter, or possibly a federal prosecution initiated by the Department of Justice.
