MINNEAPOLIS — A federal judge ordered the release of two Venezuelan men accused of assaulting a federal immigration officer last month outside a north Minneapolis duplex, concluding that they do not present a heightened flight risk.

But they never made it out of the St. Paul courthouse.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained Alfredo Aljorna, 26, and Julio Sosa-Celis, 24, without explanation, shortly after the hearing.

“This re-detention is unconstitutional and they should be immediately released,” family attorney Brian Clark wrote in an emergency habeas petition filed late Tuesday, Feb. 3.

Minnesota’s Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz ruled almost immediately that ICE could not move Sosa-Celis and Aljorna out of Minnesota. He gave the federal government until Friday to provide an explanation for its actions.

The routine court hearing was scheduled to weigh the conditions of their potential release. But it also offered the first outside glimpse of photographs that raise questions about the federal government’s account of what happened.

For two weeks, the court weighed conflicting accounts of the incident, which began with an attempted traffic stop on Interstate 94 and ended with an unidentified ICE agent shooting Sosa-Celis, who was not the original target of the enforcement action. A case of mistaken identity triggered the chaotic chain of events that culminated in hours of unrest that night.

The shooting occurred seven days after the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent and more than a week before the killing of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents.

A federal affidavit unsealed last month outlines how the agent pursued Aljorna for several miles before Aljorna crashed outside his North Side apartment. The agent chased Aljorna toward the residence on foot, and a scuffle ensued, according to court records, and Aljorna and Sosa-Celis allegedly beat the officer with a snow shovel and broom.

The agent fired a single shot, according to the affidavit, with the bullet passing through Sosa-Celis’ thigh. Both Aljorna and Sosa-Celis have repeatedly said the gunshot came after they had gone inside their duplex and closed the front door behind them.

Their partners, who were already inside, also described the shooting that way in the immediate aftermath to relatives over FaceTime, according to video recordings reviewed by the Minnesota Star Tribune.

In court Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Syngen Kanassatega argued that, given the nature of the offense, the men present “a danger to the public.” He asked that U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson keep the men in federal custody to ensure they don’t flee before future court appearances.

Aljorna and Sosa-Celis’ attorneys countered that neither man has a violent criminal history and emphasized that witness statements and video evidence from the Jan. 14 altercation fail to corroborate the federal agents’ account — and in some cases directly contradict it.

“[The allegations] come from an individual with a powerful motivation to fabricate,” said Frederick Goetz, Aljorna’s counsel. Goetz said he recently learned that the officer who shot at the men is under investigation for unreasonable use of force. The agent has not been publicly identified.

Surveillance footage provided to the FBI by the Minneapolis Police Department did not capture the entire incident but showed “three individuals in a physical altercation,” according to the affidavit. The footage has not been released to the public.

Magnuson agreed to release the men with conditions, including that they remain law-abiding and stay in Minnesota. Aljorna is also subject to GPS monitoring. The following day, after ICE re-detained them – seemingly in violation of Magnuson’s order – the senior judge issued a new order barring the DHS from deporting either man until the conclusion of all court proceedings in the case. That protection also extended to every witness, namely Aljorna and Sosa-Celis’ partners.

One critical exchange during the court hearing involved the question of when the agent fired his weapon: before or after the men entered the duplex.

“It should be pretty easy to determine whether a bullet went through the door,” Magnuson said. “Did it?”

Kanassatega replied that the government had not yet been provided such evidence.

But moments later, Goetz approached the bench to show Magnuson photographs on his laptop depicting a single bullet hole through the front door of the home.

The Minnesota Star Tribune reviewed those pictures afterward. The hole appears several inches to the right of the door hinge. Pictures from inside the home indicate that the bullet fragment ultimately hit a bedroom wall down the hall — suggesting that it traveled between a mattress and a portable crib in a room where several children sleep, according to Goetz.

“That bullet could have hit anyone,” said Robin Wolpert, who is representing Sosa-Celis.

A bullet and fragment were later recovered by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which launched a use-of-force investigation into the shooting, despite a lack of cooperation from federal officials.

The photographs appear to undercut statements provided by the DHS insisting that the agent fired the shot in self-defense while being attacked with a snow shovel and broom outside the residence.

Shortly after the images were filed in court as evidence, Magnuson ordered them sealed. They are not currently viewable to the public, but the Minnesota Star Tribune obtained copies from a family attorney.

When pressed about this new evidence, a DHS spokesperson declined to directly address the location of the bullet hole.

“As with any situation that is evolving, we work to give swift, accurate information to the American people as more information becomes available,” they wrote in a statement. “The facts have not changed that our law enforcement were violently attacked by three violent criminal illegal aliens and beaten with weapons.”

Federal officials initially named three men, including Aljorna and Sosa-Celis, in connection with the assault and widely publicized their mugshots. But the federal affidavit makes no mention of the third man they allegedly arrested: Gabriel Alejandro Hernandez-Ledezma.

Records show that as of Feb. 3, he has not been charged with any federal crime. He is being held at a federal detention facility in Texas.

The Star Tribune could not independently verify that Hernandez-Ledezma had any role in the incident. The DHS did not respond to inquiries about what role, if any, he may have played.

When a reporter approached the duplex 36 hours after the shooting, the front entrance had already been boarded up, making it impossible to check whether a bullet had penetrated the door.

The BCA responded to the area the night of the incident and recovered a plastic snow shovel. Investigators found a broom and ballistic evidence when they returned with a search warrant days later. However, the BCA has been barred from speaking with the agent involved and “[has] not been provided with information, including the officer’s identity or whether the officer was wearing a body camera,” an agency spokesman said in a statement on Jan. 22.

Sosa-Celis and Aljorna, both Venezuelan nationals, are longtime friends and fellow DoorDash delivery drivers who, according to the DHS, illegally entered the country in May 2023. At some point, Sosa-Celis had temporary protected status, but that apparently lapsed in April 2025. They lived on the top floor of a north Minneapolis duplex with their respective 19-year-old partners and toddler sons.

The young women were transferred to a Texas facility last month, where they were awaiting their own immigration court hearings. Neither is believed to have a criminal record in Minnesota. Their small children were returned to their grandmothers in Minnesota the day after the shooting.

Sosa-Celis’ partner, Indriany, returned to Minnesota last week after her attorney filed a successful petition on her behalf. She sat beside him and an interpreter in the courtroom gallery during the hearing. When Magnuson ordered Sosa-Celis’ release, she wiped tears from her eyes. He could finally come home.

That hasn’t happened yet.

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—Sarah Nelson and Jeff Day of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.

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