On January 14, 2026, an ICE agent named Christian Castro chased a Venezuelan immigrant into a Minneapolis house and fired his gun through the closed front door. According to state charging documents he did it "knowing [the home] was occupied by several people." One witness said two children were inside. The bullet hit Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg.
Federal prosecutors in Minnesota were preparing a civil rights case against him. Leaders at the Justice Department in Washington quashed it.
ProPublica's Megan Rose and Andy Mannix reviewed the email in which the prosecutor handling the case told the victims' lawyers what had happened.
"It wasn't enough"
Matthew Evans, the assistant U.S. attorney in charge, wrote to lawyers for Sosa-Celis and other victims that Castro would now be charged "only with False Statements" — a far less serious offense than the one prosecutors had prepared.
This is being directed by the Main Justice and the US Attorney. I objected in the strongest possible terms and fought it as hard as I could. It wasn't enough.
He closed the email: "It has been an honor and a privilege to try to get justice for your clients."
The charge his office had been preparing was deprivation of rights under color of law. That is the same charge brought against the Minneapolis police officers in George Floyd's killing, and it carries serious prison time.
A Justice Department official told ProPublica that civil rights charges require consultation with the civil rights division in Washington, that "any charging decisions that come out of such investigations are collaborative and deliberative," and that the department "has not yet reached a conclusion on this matter and will never rush an investigative process."
The prosecutor was fired
The day after ProPublica published, the Associated Press and CBS News both reported that Evans had been fired.
The AP was told he is under investigation for alleged obstruction of a grand jury probe, and got an automatic reply from his Justice Department account saying he was on leave. CBS News had the firing from four sources that evening; three of them said the department is investigating Evans, and two said the investigation concerns allegations of leaking.
The AP's source also disputed Evans' account of the charging decision, saying the civil rights investigation is continuing and no final decision has been made about further charges.
What the government said happened, and what the video showed
The Department of Homeland Security's first account was that Castro and another agent were ambushed and beaten with a shovel or a broomstick, that Castro feared for his life, and that he fired in self-defense. DHS called Sosa-Celis and the man Castro had been chasing, Alfredo Aljorna, "violent criminal illegal aliens." Federal prosecutors charged both men with assault.
A month later the government dropped those charges and backed away from its own story. "Video evidence has revealed the sworn testimony of the two agents appeared to be false," then-acting ICE director Todd Lyons said.
After the shooting, agents deployed tear gas into the house and took both men and their partners into custody.
He was in a Texas jail. Now he is in federal custody.
Castro faces multiple state felony charges in Minnesota, including assault with a dangerous weapon. He left Minneapolis for Texas, and Minnesota asked Texas to send him back.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott refused to cooperate. Castro sat in jail for 90 days while the two states fought over it, and was released in late August. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, who is prosecuting the state case, said afterward that she was worried he would flee to Mexico.
The charge Washington had settled on arrived a few days later. A federal grand jury indicted Castro on six counts of making false statements about the shooting. He turned himself in to federal authorities on September 3, and the indictment was unsealed the next day.
This is the second time in the same city
A week before Castro shot Sosa-Celis, an ICE agent named Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good in her car in Minneapolis. Agents said she drove at them. Video showed her wheels were turned away from them when they fired.
Federal authorities first agreed to a joint investigation of Good's death. Justice Department officials then refused to cooperate with state police, deciding that reviewing the killing was unnecessary. Moriarty drew the comparison herself.
Republicans in Congress reached their conclusion faster than the investigators did. Washington's Michael Baumgartner called the killing of Renee Good "a justified shooting" a week after it happened, on the word of two unnamed officials, after clearer video had already contradicted the government's account.
The pattern behind it
The reporters note that a ProPublica analysis earlier this year found that in almost every instance of immigration agents shooting people, the administration blamed the injured and the dead within hours — and that in many of those cases, federal or local police declined to investigate the agents at all.
Under this administration the Justice Department's civil rights division has been cut down and has dropped some of its Biden-era oversight of law enforcement agencies. It is the division a prosecutor has to notify in writing before charging a federal agent with violating someone's rights, and the one that can veto the case outright.
What the record shows
Federal prosecutors in Minnesota were preparing to charge ICE agent Christian Castro with deprivation of rights under color of law for shooting Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis through the closed door of an occupied house. Justice Department leadership in Washington ordered them to file a false-statements charge instead, over the case prosecutor's written objection "in the strongest possible terms." DHS's original account of the shooting was contradicted by video, by its own acting ICE director's admission, and by the dropped assault charges against the two men Castro pursued. Castro spent 90 days in a Texas jail because Governor Greg Abbott would not send him back to Minnesota. He was released in late August, and on September 3 he surrendered to federal authorities on six counts of lying about the shooting — and nothing else. By that day, the prosecutor who had objected had been fired.
Sources
Megan Rose and Andy Mannix, DOJ blocked serious ICE shooting charge over federal prosecutor's 'strongest possible' objections, ProPublica, September 2, 2026, republished by Michigan Advance on September 8. Aaron Davis contributed. Photo: Max Nesterak / Minnesota Reformer.
Alanna Durkin Richer and Valerie Gonzalez, AP source: ICE officer charged with lying about shooting turns himself in to feds, The Associated Press, September 3, 2026.
Sarah N. Lynch, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, Pat Milton and Nicole Sganga, Federal prosecutor fired after investigating ICE officer for civil rights offenses in Minnesota shooting, sources say, CBS News, September 3, 2026.
