A federal grand jury indicted ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agent Christian Castro on September 3, 2026, charging him with making false statements to federal investigators about the January 14 shooting — not with the shooting itself, but with his account of how it happened. Castro already faced a separate set of charges in Minnesota state court over the same incident. The new federal case runs alongside that one, not in place of it.
Key facts
- Who: ICE agent Christian Castro
- New charge: A federal false-statements charge over what he told investigators after a shooting, not the shooting itself
- Indicted: September 3, 2026, by a federal grand jury
- Underlying incident: Shot and wounded Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis on January 14, 2026, in north Minneapolis during “Operation Metro Surge”
- Also pending: Separate Minnesota state charges (four counts of second-degree assault, one count of false reporting) filed in May 2026
- Custody: Reported taken into federal custody the evening of September 3, though this has not been independently confirmed
Key dates
- January 14, 2026 — Castro fired through a closed door in north Minneapolis, wounding Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.
- February 2026 — The Justice Department dropped charges against Sosa-Celis and another man over the alleged shovel-and-broom attack.
- April 2026 — In a separate, unrelated case, ICE agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. was charged over a highway incident.
- May 2026 — Minnesota state prosecutors charged Castro with assault and false-reporting counts; he was suspended without pay.
- August 18, 2026 — Minnesota’s attorney general sued Texas’s governor to try to force Castro’s extradition.
- August 27, 2026 — Castro was released from a Texas jail after Texas’s 90-day detention limit expired.
- August 30, 2026 — Federal prosecutors were reported to have declined to pursue a civil-rights charge over the shooting itself.
- September 3, 2026 — A federal grand jury indicted Castro on the false-statements charge; he was reported taken into federal custody that evening.
Two other cases people sometimes confuse with this one
Castro’s case is easy to mix up with two other, separate cases that came out of the same broader operation. In April 2026, a different ICE agent, Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., was charged with two felony counts of second-degree assault for pointing his duty weapon at two civilians while driving on a Minneapolis-area highway on February 5, 2026 — an unrelated incident involving an unrelated agent.
And on January 7, 2026, a week before the Sosa-Celis shooting, ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis during the same broader operation. The Justice Department reportedly declined to open a criminal investigation into that shooting, and Ross has not been criminally charged.
What happened in January
The shooting goes back to January 14, 2026. During an immigration-enforcement operation in the Twin Cities known as “Operation Metro Surge,” Castro fired through the closed door of a home in north Minneapolis, wounding Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a 24-year-old Venezuelan national, in the leg. Castro told investigators he had opened fire after being attacked with a snow shovel and a broom handle; surveillance video of the incident later contradicted that account. Reporting describes Operation Metro Surge only as a monthlong immigration-enforcement operation covering the Twin Cities, without a fuller official account of its scope; it is the same operation that produced the Morgan highway case described above.
Charges were initially brought against Sosa-Celis and another man over the alleged shovel-and-broom attack. Those charges were dropped by the Justice Department in February 2026, which cited evidence that undercut the original version of events. Sosa-Celis survived his wound.
Why the new charge concerns what Castro told investigators, not the shooting
This is the part that separates the new case from the old one, and it’s easy to miss. The false statement at the center of the new charge is that same shovel-and-broom account: prosecutors say Castro’s story about being attacked before he fired was untrue, and that surveillance video contradicts it. Federal prosecutors in Minneapolis were reportedly preparing to bring a civil-rights charge against Castro over the shooting itself — a more serious charge than the one he now faces. That effort was reportedly blocked or scaled back by Justice Department leadership in Washington, which also removed the prosecutor handling the case, according to the same reporting. No on-the-record Justice Department statement has confirmed either part of that account. Around August 30, federal prosecutors were separately reported to have declined to pursue a civil-rights charge over the shooting. Days later, on September 3, the grand jury returned the narrower charge instead: that Castro allegedly made false statements to federal investigators about how the shooting happened.
At the time the underlying conduct first came under scrutiny, then-acting ICE head Todd Lyons said video evidence indicated that sworn testimony from two separate officers appeared to include untruthful statements. Castro and that second, unnamed agent were both placed on administrative leave over Lyons’s comment. Only Castro has since faced charges. The second officer has not been publicly named or charged, and it has not been reported whether that officer was present at the Sosa-Celis shooting itself.
A separate state case, and a fight over extradition
In May 2026, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty charged Castro in Minnesota state court with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime, also arising from the January shooting. Castro was suspended without pay.
Minnesota then tried to bring Castro back from Texas, where he was being held, to face those state charges. Texas Governor Greg Abbott declined to sign the extradition paperwork. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison sued Abbott on August 18, 2026 to try to force the issue, but a federal judge declined to order Castro held beyond Texas’s 90-day limit for detaining someone awaiting extradition. Castro was released from the Cameron County jail in Texas on August 27, 2026.
Where the case stands now
The federal grand jury returned the new indictment on September 3, 2026. Castro had remained free since his August 27 release from the Texas jail, and in the days before the indictment, one report described his location as unclear to law enforcement. Some reports said Castro turned himself in to federal custody that evening in Texas, but his exact custody status has not been independently confirmed as of September 4, 2026. That initial federal court appearance did take place on Friday, September 4, 2026, in McAllen, Texas. A judge ordered Castro released on a $75,000 unsecured bond with a GPS ankle monitor; his defense attorneys said he intends to plead not guilty. His next scheduled appearance is September 18, 2026, in federal court in Minnesota, where the underlying case will be handled.
Some details of the indictment remain unsettled in the reporting so far. One outlet described it as covering six counts; other outlets that covered the same indictment did not report a count number, and the specific federal court handling the case has not been identified in the coverage reviewed. The indictment was also reported to remain under seal, so the charging document itself was not yet available in the reporting reviewed.