BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Thursday's release of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer from a Texas jail despite Minnesota’s request for his return could set a dangerous precedent, increasing friction between states and helping criminal defendants avoid justice, legal experts said.
Christian Castro was released from a detention center in Brownsville after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declined to immediately sign his extradition warrant. A federal judge also declined to block Castro's release or order Abbott to sign the warrant.
Minnesota officials say they believe Castro could flee to Mexico to avoid prosecution on charges he shot a man and lied about it during the January immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. Extradition from Mexico would require action by the Trump administration, which opened an investigation into Castro's actions but also has argued ICE agents have “absolute immunity” for their actions on duty.
The standoff between the two states is highly unusual. Under federal law, states have little discretion to reject extradition requests from fellow states. Thousands of fugitives are sent to other states each year as a matter of routine.
But Abbott, a Republican, said last week he would not respond to Minnesota's extradition request, citing the ongoing investigation into fraud in government social service programs in the state, which President Donald Trump used to justify his immigration crackdown there.
The decision is alarming because it injects politics into the extradition process, said Marsh Halberg, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor in Minnesota.
“Something that’s been a routine process may now turn into a political card,” he said in a phone interview.
In recent months, California and New York have rejected extradition requests from Louisiana for doctors accused of mailing abortion pills.
But legal scholars say those cases are different because the doctors weren’t in Louisiana and never fled the state and became fugitives.
Under federal law, the New York and California governors had no duty to turn over the doctors, Georgetown University law professor Stephen Vladeck wrote on Substack.
“Abbot is just refusing to perform his,” he said.
An email to Abbott's office was not immediately returned, but he wrote in a Wednesday post on the social platform X that Minnesota's attorneys did not know the law. ICE also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Castro is charged in Minnesota with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 shooting of 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Prosecutors in Hennepin County, where the county attorney is a Democrat, say he fired a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, shooting Sosa-Celis in the leg, and then falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.
After a Minnesota judge issued a nationwide warrant for Castro's arrest in May, authorities, including Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, arrested him in Texas' Cameron County on May 29. Minnesota authorities have sought his extradition since then, but he remained in custody in Brownsville, a city bordering Mexico.
Under Texas law and barring extradition, Castro had to be released Thursday after 90 days in detention. Though he is free, he remains a fugitive subject to arrest in Minnesota and other states.
Abbott has exposed one of several loopholes in extradition laws that are likely to lead to more conflict between states in the future, said Ethan Lowens, a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
Texas attorneys have argued that Abbott's extradition decision is still pending, as he awaits the outcome of an internal state investigation considering whether Castro was legally a “fugitive."
U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. wrote Wednesday that the court couldn’t intervene without a final decision by Abbott. Minnesota had asked him to compel Castro’s extradition.
Lowens said other governors could make similar arguments to avoid extradition requests they oppose. As states diverge on laws over abortion, gender-affirming care and other issues, he expects such extradition conflicts to “come up more and more,” he said.
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Valerie Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas. Thanawala reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this story.