Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) bragged about defeating Minnesota’s lawyers hours before an immigration officer whose release he could have prevented walked out of jail.
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Christian Castro, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, was released from the Cameron County jail shortly after dawn, The New York Times reported. Just hours earlier, Abbott crowed about winning the court case that allowed Castro to be released.
Abbott wrote on X at 12:19 a.m. Thursday, taunting the state that had spent months trying to bring the officer back to face criminal charges.
“You guys are such bad lawyers. You showed up unprepared, uninformed & unpersuasive. You don’t know the law & it showed,” Abbott wrote. “I’ll put Minneapolis at the top of the list for future bus drop-offs if we ever have a President like Joe Biden again.”
Abbott alone had the power to send Castro north to Minnesota, where he faced charges in a shooting. Abbott, however, declined to use that power. Texas law caps detention in extradition cases at 90 days, so Castro had to be freed.
“Governor Abbott claims to be ‘tough on crime.’ How is he ‘tough on crime’ by manipulating an extradition process that is not supposed to be discretionary to protect a man who shot into a house with children inside?” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said.
Prosecutors say Castro fired through the front door of a Minneapolis home on Jan. 14, striking a Venezuelan man in the leg. The bullet made “its final impact in the wall of a child’s room,” Moriarty’s office said, according to a report from The National News Desk.
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Officer Abbott declined extradition for Castro, who faces four felony counts of second-degree assault and one misdemeanor count of falsely reporting a crime. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison eventually was forced to sue the Texas governor. But a judge appointed by President Donald Trump refused to grant Ellison’s request.
“Abbott is playing with constitutional fire,” Ellison wrote on X. “By refusing to extradite Castro, Greg Abbott is turning Texas into a sanctuary state for violent criminals.”
U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. ruled Wednesday that he could not order Abbott to sign the warrant, the Times reported. Ellison had asked the court to block the release.
Federal prosecutors dropped an assault case against the wounded man in February after investigators concluded, based on video, that agents had likely lied about the encounter, the Times reported.
A spokesperson for Abbott said the law required the release and that a governor’s warrant would be executed immediately if Abbott determines Castro is a fugitive, Texas reporter Mary Elise O’Bar reported.
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Abbott has not formally responded to the extradition request.
