Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) asserted to a judge Monday that he's not obligated to hand over an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer charged by Minnesota authorities with shooting a Venezuelan man earlier this year during "Operation Metro Surge." 

Minnesota is pushing in court to force the extradition of ICE officer Christian Castro, with a key hearing slated for Tuesday. The state insists Abbott has no discretion to avoid signing the warrant.

"In the end, Minnesota's zeal to see Mr. Castro prosecuted on its home turf cannot justify pretermitting Governor Abbott's ongoing deliberations pursuant to the Constitution and state statutes, which are designed to protect against abusive and baseless deprivations of individual liberty," Abbott's lawyers wrote in their formal written response to the court. 

U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., an appointee of President Trump who oversees the case, will consider Minnesota's bid at a Tuesday afternoon hearing in his Brownsville, Texas, courtroom.

It has become a major legal clash between Abbott and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), who requested Castro's extradition as state authorities charged the ICE officer with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime.

The officer stands accused of injuring a Venezuelan man in the leg by firing a gun at the front door of an occupied Minneapolis home on Jan. 14 amid an immigration enforcement surge in the Twin Cities. Castro had allegedly told investigators he opened fire in self-defense after being hit with a shovel and a broom, only for video footage to undercut the officer's claim. 

Abbott has refused to sign a rendition warrant that would pave the way for the officer to return to Minnesota for trial.

In the new filing, the governor's lawyers raised doubts that Castro qualifies for the Constitution's extradition requirement. It demands a state return defendants facing criminal charges who "flee from Justice" when they are "found in another State." Abbott has suggested Castro didn't flee because ICE had ordered him to return to Texas.

"The ordinary meaning of a fugitive entails a volitional act of fleeing, not mere involuntary movement across state lines," his lawyers wrote.

Minnesota insists that Abbott's role is ministerial, and the state wants a judge to immediately pave the way for the officer to be returned.

"The Framers of the Constitution and Congress intended the interstate extradition process to be a swift, summary one in which the state into which a defendant travels promptly returns a fugitive as soon as the requesting state demands it," the state wrote in court filings last week. 

Abbott cautioned he hasn't yet made a final decision on the extradition request. But his new filing said that any notion Minnesota could unilaterally enforce the extradition power was "doomed to fail." His filing also took shots at Walz for pardoning a man charged with sexually assaulting a minor.

"Equity favors those with clean hands," Abbott's lawyers wrote.

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