A newly released city-owned surveillance video from Minneapolis has thrown into question the official account provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding the January shooting of Venezuelan migrant Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, opening a new rift between local officials and federal immigration authorities amid an ongoing national crackdown on unauthorized migration.
In the immediate aftermath of the January 14 incident, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed that an ICE officer had shot Sosa-Celis in the leg in self-defense, stating the agent had been ambushed by three people and attacked with a snow shovel and broom handle. The confrontation was framed as the conclusion of a high-speed car chase involving Sosa-Celis, who was residing in the U.S. without legal authorization. Based on the officers’ initial statements, federal prosecutors filed charges of assaulting federal officers against both Sosa-Celis and a second migrant, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna.
However, those charges were abruptly dropped in February, after ICE officials acknowledged that the two involved agents appeared to have submitted false statements about the encounter. On Monday, Minneapolis city officials released the full CCTV footage of the lead-up to the shooting, a recording that further undermines the federal government’s original narrative.
The grainy, low-light distant footage does not capture the shooting itself, but it contradicts key claims made by DHS. It shows only a brief struggle between agents and two men, not an ambush by three. Most notably, the footage shows one individual tossing a shovel aside before any physical contact with agents occurs, directly contradicting the claim that an agent was struck with the shovel. The video captures Sosa-Celis running up a residential street, chased by an agent, stumbling before continuing toward a nearby house, followed by a short scrum on the ground before the shooting.
This shooting was not an isolated incident. It is one of a string of violent encounters involving ICE agents operating in Minneapolis, a city that has been a key target of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement push. The string of violent incidents, which also include the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good, already sparked large public protests against federal immigration operations in the city.
Crucially, reporting from The New York Times, which first broke the story of the conflicting footage, revealed that federal investigators had full access to the CCTV recording within hours of the shooting. Despite this access, investigators did not review the footage until nearly three weeks after the two men had already been formally charged. The involved officers, who have not been publicly identified, have been placed on administrative leave as the DHS conducts an internal investigation, and a separate criminal investigation into the incident is also ongoing.
When releasing the video this week, Minneapolis city officials declined to add any further context or comment, stating they had no additional information to share at this time. But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey issued a sharp rebuke of the federal government’s account, saying the video makes clear that the official federal narrative is inconsistent with the facts. Frey noted the discrepancy mirrors other problematic incidents that occurred during Operation Metro Surge, the federal immigration enforcement sweep targeting the Minneapolis region.