The Trump administration has chosen a particularly complicated and odd case to seize on in its neverending quest to vilify California, sanctuary laws, and Governor Gavin Newsom.

36-year-old Marcos Iriarte-Valdez, a Venezuelan national with dual citizenship in Spain who had come to the US legally almost 20 years ago, was a successful engineer with a degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, previous jobs at Boeing and Ametek, and a townhouse in Martinez that he'd recently put on the market for a half-million dollars. His exact immigration or visa status is unclear. He is now charged with the August 6 murder of 68-year-old Todd Stewart, in broad daylight, in a Martinez cul-de-sac where Stewart lived.

Iriarte-Valdez is an unusual candidate to be held up for political gain by the Trump administration — and he's probably being used an example largely because he has a Latino last name, and his victim was white. He may have had an immigration detainer placed on him last year by the Department of Homeland Security — they claim it was in place last September, but the Chronicle reports that the department placed the detainer on August 8, after Stewart's killing. DHS has not explained the discrepancy.

As Bay Area News Group reports, Iriarte-Valdez appeared to be a man with a solid career and stable life, but things seemed to begin unraveling in January 2025, when an ex-girlfriend reported him for an alleged domestic violence incident. In the incident, she described sitting at her computer when Iriarte-Valdez "grabbed her by the throat" and began choking her.

After the couple had broken up, the girlfriend told police that she had found photos and videos on Iriarte-Valdez's computer of girls "16 and up" allegedly being sexually abused. These were just videos from porn websites, Iriarte-Valdez told authorities, where the girls' ages were being misrepresented for marketing purposes.

The woman then filed a restraining order against Iriarte-Valdez, which he allegedly violated in April 2025. He was charged with a misdemeanor, and h agreed in a subsequent court proceeding to a diversion program, which was ongoing as of last week and scheduled to go on until February 2027.

Iriarte-Valdez appears to have lost or left his job at Ametek that same month, April 2025, and his LinkedIn shows no subsequent employers. Then, three months ago, in May 2026, he was arrested and charged in connection with several daytime burglaries in Orinda. Two judges overseeing his cases signed off in his release in separate hearings, stemming from California's affordable-bail law — though his initial release came with a home detention requirement that he allegedly violated. Because of that violation, he was back in court before Contra Costa County  Judge Nichelle Holmes on August 5 — and this is the situation that's been seized upon by the Trump administration and Fox News.

As he had before, Iriarte-Valdez was released on his own recognizance, after being in Contra Costa County custody for one day. DHS claims that, at this point, were it not for California's sanctuary law, ICE would have been called to collect Iriarte-Valdez upon his release.

Instead, he headed to the cul de sac in Martinez, Francis Court, the next day, apparently to commit another daytime burglary. Authorities say that Todd Stewart caught him in the act and confronted him, and that he fatally stabbed Stewart on the spot.

"If [federal authorities] had determined to target this individual, nothing would have stopped them from tracking his public court hearings and taking him into custody," says Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for Governor Gavin Newsom. "They didn’t, and now they are trying to blame everyone but themselves."

This is only the latest example of a murder case in the Bay Area that has been seized on by the right-wing media because the suspect was an undocumented immigrant. The most infamous was the 2015 killing of Kate Steinle on Pier 14, where the culprit, Jose Ines Garcia-Zarate, was an undocumented homeless man who had been previously deported. Then-candidate Donald Trump and others seized on the case as showing the dangers of sanctuary laws, though Garcia-Zarate was ultimately acquitted in the murder because it was clear the shooting had occurred accidentally.

The Iriarte-Valdez case has also brought fresh attention to the affordable-bail issue, which was affirmed in a California Supreme Court ruling in April. Multiple district attorneys, including SF's Brooke Jenkins, have expressed concerns about the precedent, because it can mean judges are put in a difficult spot, as the Chronicle notes. Though in this case, the suspect would not have been released if he had previously committed a capital offense.

On Monday, Iriarte-Valdez was charged with murder with enhancements for killing during a burglary, using a knife, and committing a crime while free on conditional release.

Iriarte-Valdez is due in court for a hearing on September 9.