The case is the first known instance of the Justice Department seeking to prosecute a federal immigration officer for their actions during the operation.
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A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent accused of shooting and injuring a man during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown in Minneapolis earlier this year was federally charged Wednesday with lying to investigators about the incident, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The case against Christian Castro, 52, is the first known instance of the Justice Department seeking to prosecute a federal immigration officer for their actions during the Minneapolis operation, which prompted widespread demonstrations and rebukes from lawmakers and federal judges. Top department officials have resisted calls to investigate high-profile shootings by Department of Homeland Security personnel, including those that led to the deaths of protesters Alex Pretti and Renée Good in Minneapolis in January.
The person who described the charges against Castro did so on the condition of anonymity because Castro has not yet been taken into custody and the case against him remains under seal.
But the decision to charge him with lying to investigators comes after a push by some prosecutors in the Minneapolis U.S. attorney’s office to charge the agent with civil rights violations — a more serious crime — said two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
Both said they were told that effort was probably not moving forward — a decision that led to dissension between the Minneapolis-based federal prosecutors and higher-ups at the Justice Department.
A top prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office, Matt Evans, who had been working on the investigation, conveyed that to others in an email earlier this week, one of the people said. He was fired Wednesday, according to a third person familiar with the matter.
Evans did not respond to emails sent to his work address Wednesday. An auto-reply said he was “on leave.”
Pro Publica first reported Evans’s email. The Associated Press reported the charge against Castro.
The Justice Department has said that no final decision has been made on whether to pursue civil rights charges in this case. Castro’s attorneys could not immediately be reached for comment.
The decision to charge Castro in federal court comes as local authorities in Minnesota wage their own legal battle to bring him back to their jurisdiction to face state-level charges over the same shooting.
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The federal case, filed in Minneapolis, charges Castro with lying to federal agents — a crime punishable by up to five years in prison, should he be convicted.
Prosecutors in that case allege that Castro misled investigators about the circumstances behind a Jan. 14 incident in which he fired his service weapon through the door of a duplex where an immigrant he was pursuing had fled after a car chase.
Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan migrant and the roommate of the man Castro was chasing, was struck in the leg.
Days after the shooting, Sosa-Celis and his roommate were charged with assaulting Castro and other immigration officers at the house.
Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem defended her officers’ conduct as self-defense, saying they were responding to what she described as “an attempted murder of federal law enforcement.” Prosecutors claimed, based in part on statements from Castro, that Sosa-Celis and his roommate had rushed from the home and attacked the ICE agents with a snow shovel and a broom handle.
But within months, those same government lawyers returned to court asking that the charges against Sosa-Celis be dismissed. A review of video evidence from the scene revealed Castro and other officers “appear to have made untruthful statements” about the incident, they said.
Daniel N. Rosen, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, signaled in February that Castro and others could end up facing charges, noting that the “newly discovered evidence” was “materially inconsistent with the allegations” the officers had made.
Castro, who had been dispatched to Minneapolis from ICE’s field office in Harlingen, Texas, was placed on leave at the time and has remained off duty ever since.
He was released a week ago from a county jail in Texas where he had been held since late May, pending a decision from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on whether to honor Minnesota’s extradition request.
A federal judge on Aug. 26 rejected a request by Minnesota prosecutors that he order Abbott to immediately extradite Castro, a Texas resident who was temporarily deployed to Minneapolis as part of ICE’s surge operations.
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