ICE agent charged with lying under oath about Minnesota shooting

Authorities say agent fired into home with people inside, lied about circumstances.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are seen detaining two people outside a home in Danbury, Connecticut [File: Vincent Alban/Reuters]

Federal prosecutors in the United States have charged an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer accused of lying under oath to investigators regarding the shooting of a Venezuelan man during an immigration crackdown this year.

Prosecutors alleged that Christian Castro lied to federal investigators about the events that led up to him firing on 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis through the door of a Minnesota home in January.

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The Associated Press news agency and The New York Times reported the indictment, quoting a person familiar with the matter who was not authorised to discuss the investigation publicly. It was expected to be unsealed when Castro is detained.

Castro, a former Department of Homeland Security agent, also faces multiple state felony charges in Minnesota related to the nonfatal shooting, including assault with a dangerous weapon.

Authorities in the Midwestern state had sought to extradite Castro from Texas to face trial. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican and President Donald Trump loyalist, declined to cooperate with the request.

The ensuing standoff left Castro detained in Texas for 90 days before his release last week. Under Texas law, the state cannot hold the subject of an extradition order for longer than that. His whereabouts were unclear as of Thursday.

The charges mark a rare move by the Department of Justice under Trump.

Trump’s top officials have repeatedly argued that immigration agents maintain broad protections while conducting enforcement, a position rejected by many legal experts.

For example, no one has been charged in the fatal shootings by immigration agents of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January.

An Associated Press review conducted in February found about two dozen ICE employees and contractors had faced criminal charges since 2020.

An American Civil Liberties Union report released in July documented instances of violent tactics or other civil rights violations in about a third of 1,200 immigration enforcement incidents reviewed in 2025 alone.

Video evidence contradicts statement

The Trump administration distanced itself from the Castro case after video emerged contradicting the agent’s initial accounts of the confrontation.

Castro told investigators that Sosa-Celis had attacked him, which the surveillance footage showed did not happen.

Todd Lyons, then acting head of ICE, said at the time that the footage “has revealed that sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements”.

Castro and a fellow agent chased Alfredo Aljorna, a Venezuelan national, after a traffic stop, according to charging documents.

Aljorna fled to the home he shared with Sosa-Celis. After a brief scramble, the two men ran inside. Castro then shot through the closed door, “knowing [the home] was occupied by several people”, the documents said.

One witness said there were two children in the house when Castro opened fire. Sosa-Celis was hit in the leg.

Federal authorities have since suspended Castro and dropped all charges against Sosa-Celis and his co-defendant, who were both initially accused of forcibly assaulting an ICE officer. The other agent involved in the incident was also suspended, but has not yet been charged.

Thursday’s indictment comes after ProPublica this week reported that Department of Justice (DOJ) officials had blocked prosecutors from pursuing more serious civil rights charges against Castro, including “deprivation of rights under color of law”.

However, a source close to the investigation told the AP the active investigation could still result in civil rights charges.

The Trump administration has scaled back the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and dismantled several Biden-era police oversight initiatives since returning to office in January 2025.

That has come as the administration has revved up its mass deportation campaign across the country.

In August, immigration agents detained 50,925 people with the Department of Homeland Security hailing it as a new record for the “highest number of illegal aliens arrested in a single month”.

当局称，该特工向有人在屋内居住的房屋开枪，并谎报了情况。

美国移民和海关执法局特工在康涅狄格州丹伯里一处住宅外拘留两人。[图片：Vincent Alban/路透社]

美国联邦检察官指控一名移民和海关执法局 (ICE) 官员在今年的一次移民打击行动中，就一名委内瑞拉男子被枪击一事向调查人员作伪证。

检察官指控克里斯蒂安·卡斯特罗向联邦调查人员撒谎，隐瞒了导致他于 1 月份在明尼苏达州一户人家门口向 24 岁的胡里奥·塞萨尔·索萨-塞利斯开枪的事件经过。

列表 1/3：车祸后，母女二人在医院被美国移民及海关执法局拘留

美国法官驳回明尼苏达州要求德克萨斯州引渡移民及海关执法局特工的请求（共3例，此为第2例）。

前移民及海关执法局特工因枪击事件被控，后被德州当局释放（共3例，此为第3例）

美联社和《纽约时报》报道了这份起诉书，援引了一位知情人士的话，该人士未被授权公开讨论调查情况。预计卡斯特罗被拘留后，起诉书将被公开。

卡斯特罗曾是美国国土安全部的一名特工，他还面临明尼苏达州的多项与这起非致命枪击事件相关的重罪指控，包括使用危险武器进行袭击。

美国中西部某州当局曾试图将卡斯特罗从德克萨斯州引渡回国受审。德克萨斯州州长格雷格·阿博特是共和党人，也是唐纳德·特朗普总统的忠实拥护者，他拒绝配合引渡请求。

随后的对峙导致卡斯特罗在德克萨斯州被拘留了90天，于上周获释。根据德克萨斯州法律，该州不得将引渡令对象拘留超过90天。截至周四，他的下落仍然不明。

这些指控是特朗普领导下的司法部罕见的举动。

特朗普的高级官员一再辩称，移民执法人员在执行执法任务时享有广泛的保护，但这一立场遭到了许多法律专家的驳斥。

例如，今年 1 月在明尼阿波利斯发生的移民执法人员枪杀蕾妮·妮可·古德和亚历克斯·普雷蒂的案件中，至今无人被起诉。

美联社2月份进行的一项调查发现，自2020年以来，约有24名美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）雇员和承包商面临刑事指控。

美国公民自由联盟 (ACLU) 于 7 月发布的一份报告记录了 2025 年审查的 1200 起移民执法事件中约有三分之一存在暴力手段或其他侵犯公民权利的行为。

视频证据与声明相矛盾

在一段视频曝光后，视频内容与该特工最初对冲突的描述相矛盾，特朗普政府随即与卡斯特罗案撇清关系。

卡斯特罗告诉调查人员，索萨-塞利斯袭击了他，但监控录像显示此事并未发生。

时任美国移民及海关执法局代理局长托德·莱昂斯当时表示，录像“显示两名不同官员提供的宣誓证词似乎有不实陈述”。

根据起诉文件，卡斯特罗和另一名特工在一次交通拦截后追捕了委内瑞拉公民阿尔弗雷多·阿尔霍纳。

阿尔霍纳逃到他和索萨-塞利斯合住的房子里。两人短暂争执后跑进屋内。文件显示，卡斯特罗随后隔着紧闭的房门开枪，“他知道（房子里）有几个人”。

一名目击者称，卡斯特罗开枪时屋内有两个孩子。索萨-塞利斯腿部中弹。

联邦当局已暂停卡斯特罗的职务，并撤销了对索萨-塞利斯及其同案被告的所有指控。两人最初被指控强行袭击一名移民及海关执法局（ICE）官员。涉案的另一名特工也被停职，但尚未被起诉。

周四的起诉是在 ProPublica 本周报道司法部官员阻止检察官对卡斯特罗提起更严重的民权指控（包括“以法律名义剥夺权利”）之后提出的。

然而，一位接近调查的消息人士告诉美联社，目前的调查仍有可能导致侵犯公民权利的指控。

自 2025 年 1 月重返执政以来，特朗普政府缩减了司法部民权司的规模，并废除了拜登时代的几项警察监督举措。

与此同时，本届政府加大了在全国范围内的大规模驱逐出境行动力度。

8 月份，移民执法人员拘留了 50925 人，国土安全部称这是“单月逮捕非法移民人数最多的一次”的新纪录。