Community members react to federal immigration agents conducting immigration enforcement tasks in Minneapolis on Feb. 5. [REUTERS/YONHAP]
A U.S. immigration agent was arrested in Texas on Friday, nearly two weeks after a Minnesota prosecutor took the unusual step of charging him with assaulting a Venezuelan man in a nonfatal shooting in Minneapolis this year. Christian Castro, an agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), faces four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime for shooting Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg on Jan. 14, at the height of President Donald Trump's aggressive and hotly protested deportation surge in Minnesota.
It is extremely rare for state prosecutors to charge federal law enforcement officials, but Castro is the second federal official to be charged this year by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, the chief state prosecutor in Minneapolis. State officials are attempting to hold the federal government to account for what they say is unconstitutional overreach.
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White House officials have repeatedly defended the conduct of ICE agents and said, incorrectly, that they are immune from prosecution for breaking state laws.
