The Extradition of an ICE Officer

Is Texas becoming a “sanctuary state for violent criminals”? That’s the overheated accusation leveled by Minnesota’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, in the extradition dispute over an ICE officer charged with wounding an immigrant at Minneapolis. The North Star State is demanding that Texas authorities turn over the officer, Christian Castro. Yet Governor Greg Abbott of the Lone Star State says he is weighing whether Governor Tim Walz’s extradition request is valid. On Tuesday a federal judge at the border city of Brownsville, Texas, sided with Texas over Minnesota’s request. Judge Fernando Rodriguez, Jr., nominated to the bench by President Trump, reckons that the dispute is not yet ripe for action by federal courts. Charges were announced in May against Mr. Castro. On May 29, he was arrested by Texas authorities. Mr. Ellison contends that Mr. Abbott has “held up Castro’s extradition for nearly three months.”In a court filing, Mr. Abbott says he is engaged in “deliberations pursuant to the Constitution and state statutes” to consider the extradition request. These legal bulwarks, as Mr. Abbott puts it, “are designed to protect against abusive and baseless deprivations of individual liberty.” Judge Rodriguez, asked to compel Mr. Castro’s handover, says he “is unaware of any authority supporting the creation of a court-imposed deadline under these circumstances.”“We have never heard of anything taking this long because it is an administrative process,” said the Minnesota prosecutor, Mary Moriarty, pursuing the charges against Mr. Castro. “It is not supposed to be controversial.” Yet ICE calls the attempt to prosecute Mr. Castro “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt.” Mr. Abbott, for his part, says “I don’t trust Tim Walz on anything, let alone something like this.”The Castro “case has tested the limits of state powers in an era of deep political mistrust,” the Times reports, in part because “it is rare for federal agents to face state criminal charges for on-duty conduct.” These circumstances would seem to militate in favor of Mr. Abbott’s scrutiny of Mr. Walz’s extradition request. Per Mr. Abbott, “no State may short-circuit the Constitution’s protections simply because it wants to claim its pound of flesh.”What does the national parchment dictate in this dispute? Article IV, Section 2 ordains that “A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.” In Mr. Castro’s case, for one thing, it’s far from clear that he fled from authorities.Plus, too, the Congressional Research Service cautions that the Extradition Clause “is not self-executing, and the Constitution provides Congress no express grant of power to implement it.” Federal law orders governors to abide by its provisions. Yet until 1987, high court precedent held that this was what Chief Justice Taney, in Kentucky v. Dennison, deemed but a “moral duty,” and that Congress or courts cannot compel a governor to follow the law.Taney’s ruling was overturned in Puerto Rico v. Branstad. Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Thurgood Marshall dismissed the Dennison precedent as “the product of another time.” The Nine held that states “may invoke the power of federal courts to enforce against state officers rights created by federal statutes.” That power could well face a new legal test if Mr. Ellison, as appears likely, appeals Judge Rodriguez’s ruling to higher federal tribunals.

The Extradition of an ICE Officer

The Extradition of an ICE Officer

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