ICE agent charged in shooting during Minneapolis immigration crackdown is arrested in Texas
Zoe Sottile, CNN | 5/29/2026, 1:39 p.m.
An ICE agent facing several assault charges in connection with a shooting involving two Venezuelan people in Minnesota earlier this year has been arrested in Texas, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said.
Christian Castro was charged earlier this month with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime.
CNN is working to determine whether Castro has an attorney and has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
Castro faces those charges in connection with the January 14 shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis, who was shot in the leg through the front door of a Minneapolis home. The incident took place during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement blitz in the Twin Cities.
Originally, Sosa-Celis and his cousin Alfredo A. Aljorna were facing federal charges after DHS said they had attacked an agent, prompting him to fire a defensive shot.
But the Justice Department dropped the charges in February, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement said two of its agents, who made false statements about the incident under oath, were placed on administrative leave.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he was “pleased” to hear Castro has been arrested.
“In Minnesota, we believe in equal justice under the law. That means nobody is above the law, including agents of the federal government,” Ellison said in a news release about the arrest.
“Christian Castro’s alleged shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis appears unwarranted, as evidenced by the lies Castro told his ICE supervisors to justify his unlawful actions,” Ellison added.
Prosecutors have said a bullet traveled through the front door and struck Sosa-Celis, before making its final impact in the wall of a child’s room.
The shooting took place amid a flurry of other shootings during Operation Metro Surge, which saw thousands of federal agents dispatched to the Twin Cities. The operations sparked weeks of protests and prompted lawsuits from both the state and city governments.
Renée Good, a 33-year-old mother of three, was fatally shot by an ICE agent on January 7. And Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, was fatally shot by two DHS officers on January 24. In both those cases, the government’s original accounts of the shootings faced scrutiny as videos and witness accounts emerged.

