The Justice Department is weighing federal charges against an ICE officer just hours before a judge decides whether Minnesota can finally take custody of him.
Federal prosecutors could move as soon as Tuesday, CNN reported, citing a source familiar with the case and a department spokeswoman. The officer, Christian Castro, was arrested in May on charges in Minnesota. He has been held in a Texas jail since.
A federal charge would put Castro in the custody of the government he works for. Minnesota's case would wait behind it.
"In any other DOJ, this would mean just what it says," law professor Harry Litman observed on Monday. "Here the immediate suspicion is they're pursuing an investigation in order somehow to hamstring or bollix up Minnesota's charges against Castro."
Minnesota has spent months trying to bring him north, state Attorney General Keith Ellison's office said. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has refused to sign the transfer warrant.
Attorney General Keith Ellison sued Abbott on Aug. 18 for refusing to extradict Castro.
A hearing is set for Tuesday in Brownsville. Abbott asked the judge on Monday to refuse, the Texas Tribune reported, arguing he faces no deadline.
"The ninety-day period limits pre-warrant detention; it does not impose a ninety-day deadline on the Governor to approve or deny the demanding State's request," Abbott told the court, according to the Tribune.
Cameron County Sheriff Manuel Trevino told the court he "must follow state law" and release Castro on the 90th day unless ordered otherwise, KRGV reported. That day is Wednesday.
Texas has sent three other defendants to Minnesota since Castro's arrest, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said, according to a CBS News report.
"We have never heard of anything taking this long because it is an administrative process," Moriarty said.
Castro is accused of firing at the front door of an occupied Minneapolis home in January and wounding Julio Sosa-Celis in the leg, CNN reported. The Department of Homeland Security then charged Sosa-Celis and another man.
Prosecutors moved weeks later to drop those charges, and ICE has acknowledged its agents made "false statements" under oath.
The Justice Department told CNN it has not decided whether to charge Castro, and spokeswoman Emily Covington called the talks routine.
"Any charging decisions that come out of such investigations are collaborative and deliberative and adhere to the facts and law of that specific case and controversy," Covington wrote, according to CNN.
