Greg Abbott has ‘serious doubts’ ICE agent arrested in Texas is a fugitive - Houston Chronicle

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has filed court documents expressing "serious doubts" that Christian Castro, an ICE agent arrested in Texas and held in Cameron County, qualifies as a fugitive under the law that would require Abbott to send him to Minnesota.

Castro is accused of shooting a man in Minneapolis. Minnesota officials requested his extradition and, when Abbott declined to sign the paperwork, sued to force his hand before a legal deadline kicks in. Under Texas law, a person held as a fugitive awaiting extradition cannot be detained longer than 90 days. Castro could walk out of Cameron County jail as soon as Wednesday if the matter is not resolved.

A judge was hearing arguments in the case Tuesday. Minnesota filed its lawsuit last week, meaning the courts have days, not weeks, to sort this out.

For people here in Texas, the case puts the governor squarely in the middle of a standoff between state and federal authority, with Abbott effectively shielding a federal law enforcement officer from a process that governors routinely handle without resistance. Whether the court agrees with Abbott's reading of fugitive law will determine whether Castro boards a plane to Minneapolis or walks free on a Texas technicality.