ICE Agent Arrested in Texas for Shooting Venezuelan Man and Lying

Federal Agent Tracked Down After Months on the Run

Christian Castro, a 52-year-old Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, was arrested Friday morning in Harlingen, Texas, by Texas Rangers executing a nationwide warrant issued by Minnesota prosecutors. Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigators tracked him down in Texas earlier this week after he was charged on May 18 with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime .

Castro was deployed as part of President Donald Trump's mass deportation push in the Twin Cities, dubbed "Operation Metro Surge," and the charges stem from the shooting of Venezuelan national Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis at his home on January 14 . According to the criminal complaint, Castro allegedly fired a gunshot into a north Minneapolis home "knowing it was occupied by multiple individuals," striking Sosa-Celis in the leg, with investigators recovering a 9mm shell casing outside the home and documenting a bullet trajectory traveling through the front door and multiple interior walls before lodging in a child's bedroom wall .

False Claims Unraveled by Video Evidence

The complaint states that Castro gave false accounts of the confrontation to fellow ICE agents, medical staff and the FBI, claiming he had been attacked with a broom and shovel before he fired his weapon . However, prosecutors say those claims were contradicted by surveillance video, witness statements and physical evidence .

Video evidence and witness accounts contradicted the original federal claims that Julio Sosa-Celis and his cousin had attacked the agent with a shovel . Federal charges against Sosa-Celis and his roommate, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, were dismissed with prejudice after government prosecutors said "newly discovered evidence" clashed with the accounts of two ICE agents involved, and those two agents were placed on leave while Homeland Security investigated whether they lied under oath .

The traffic stop that precipitated the incident was a case of mistaken identity, with ICE claiming Sosa-Celis was stopped due to a license plate search flagging him as a noncitizen; however, he was in the country legally with Temporary Protected Status .

Federal-State Jurisdictional Battle Intensifies

In a statement to CNN, a DHS spokesperson called Castro's arrest "unlawful" and a "political stunt," saying the agent's actions should be handled at the federal, not state level . The statement said, in part, "These actions by Minnesota sanctuary politicians are unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt" .

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a news release, "That means nobody is above the law, including agents of the federal government," adding that "Christian Castro's alleged shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis appears unwarranted, as evidenced by the lies Castro told his ICE supervisors to justify his unlawful actions" . Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said, "Today's arrest is a critical step forward in our prosecution of Mr. Castro" .

Part of Broader Pattern of Violence

Castro is the second ICE agent to be charged by Moriarty's office for their role in Operation Metro Surge, which civil rights groups and Minnesota officials have characterized as a lawless immigration crackdown involving racial profiling, warrantless arrests, violent raids, and multiple shootings by federal agents, with another agent, Gregory Morgan Jr., charged last month with two counts of felony second-degree assault after he allegedly pulled a gun on two local residents during a traffic stop .

The shooting happened a week after Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in south Minneapolis . This case represents a rare instance of state prosecutors pursuing criminal charges against federal immigration agents, setting up a potential legal showdown over jurisdiction and accountability in federal law enforcement operations.