Police released this image of a man they say stabbed a 68-year-old Martinez man to death and then fled in a Cadillac SUV. He was not arrested as of early Friday evening.
Martinez Police Department
President Donald Trump’s administration blamed Gov. Gavin Newsom this week for the brutal Aug. 6 killing of a Martinez man during an attempted home burglary, claiming the state’s sanctuary law shielded the alleged murderer from federal immigration officials.
The truth, as always, is more complicated. But that hasn’t stopped the tragedy from erupting into another bitter feud between Trump’s right-wing government and liberal California, with the state’s immigration policies at the center of a finger-pointing political debate that once again lacks nuance.
Border czar Tom Homan told Fox News that 68-year-old Todd Stewart is “dead because Gov. Newsom and the state of California puts politics, hatred over President Trump, over public safety.”
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The administration is blaming one of its favorite targets, the state’s sanctuary law, which was signed by former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017 and limits the extent to which state and local law enforcement officials can cooperate with federal immigration officials.
Trump has vilified California’s sanctuary law for years. A San Francisco judge last year struck down a Trump order to withhold billions of dollars from San Francisco and other local jurisdictions that have sanctuary policies. The U.S. Supreme Court previously rejected a Trump administration challenge to California’s law.
Newsom’s spokesperson, Diana Crofts-Pelayo, said in a statement that the alleged killer, Marcos Iriarte-Valdez, “should face justice for his alleged crime.” But she disputed that California’s sanctuary law played a role in Stewart’s death.
“California takes public safety seriously, and nothing in California law prevents federal authorities from enforcing federal immigration law,” she said, adding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has “billions of dollars and substantial resources” to do its work.
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Iriarte-Valdez pleaded not guilty for fatally stabbing Stewart during an attempted home burglary at his Wednesday arraignment, and was ordered held without bail after a judge deemed him “a risk to public safety.” Iriarte-Valdez’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump officials contend Iriarte-Valdez should never have had the chance to allegedly kill Stewart.
Iriarte-Valdez currently faces two felony residential burglary charges from April. He was initially released from custody in May by a Contra Costa Superior Court judge, who ordered electronic monitoring as part of his pre-trial conditions. He was then brought before Judge Nichelle Holmes on Aug. 5, a day before Stewart was killed, for allegedly violating his home detention requirements. He was released again with electronic monitoring, according to county court records and the Martinez Police Department.
The Department of Homeland Security claims Iriarte-Valdez is “a criminal alien from Venezuela with citizenship in Spain.” The department said he was legally admitted to the United States in 2007, under President George W. Bush. But it’s unclear if the department is even referring to the correct person. In its statement, the agency referred to as “Marcos Eduardo Iriarte Valdezusper,” and did not respond to a follow-up question about the last name discrepancy.
The department told Fox News this week that it had placed an immigration detainer in September 2025 for Iriarte-Valdez, who had entered a diversion program after facing a misdemeanor charge for allegedly violating a protective order last year filed by an ex-girlfriend. A detainer asks local law enforcement to notify federal officials before they release a person of interest and to hold the individual for up to 48 hours beyond than their scheduled release.
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“The safest way to arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens from our streets is by lodging arrest detainers,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “Because sanctuary cities refuse to work with ICE, criminal illegal aliens are released from jails into American communities to perpetuate more crimes.”
But in a statement to the Chronicle, the department said it had placed the detainer on Aug. 8, after Stewart’s killing. It did not answer questions for clarification on the timeline of when and how many detainers it had placed and when and how Iriarte-Valdez’s immigration status changed.
Regardless, it’s true that California’s sanctuary law would have prohibited the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department from honoring a detainer request. The law largely limits local and state law enforcement from cooperating with federal officials until after a person is convicted of a crime and is released from custody.
“It’s not a lawful order to hold somebody in custody just because another agency asks you to,” said former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, now the executive director of the UC Berkeley Criminal Law and Justice Center. “If you unlawfully detain someone, you will get sued for violating civil rights.”
Boudin said that if immigration officials were interested in detaining Iriarte-Valdez, they should have obtained an arrest warrant, superseding California law. “If ICE had a warrant for his arrest, he would have been held,” Boudin said.
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The Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department did not respond to a request for comment. But in a 2024 report, it noted that the office does not honor detainer requests but will fulfill a notification request in compliance with state law and “only for inmates held for certain charges, specifically inmates convicted of a serious or a violent felony.”
Homan said in his Fox News interview that immigration officials “did our job” in locating and investigating Iriarte-Valdez’s immigration status and history in the criminal justice system.
“There’s nothing illegal, there’s nothing about the sanctuary law in California, for a deputy to just pick the phone up and say, ‘Hey this guy is being released in an hour,’” Homan said. “You don’t have to hold him one minute longer than you would normally hold him. Just call us before you release him.”
Crofts-Pelayo said federal law enforcement officials could have taken Iriarte-Valdez into custody if they wanted.
“If they had determined to target this individual, nothing would have stopped them from tracking his public court hearings and taking him into custody,” she said. “They didn’t, and now they are trying to blame everyone but themselves.”
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Holmes, the judge who approved Iriarte-Valdez’s release last week, has in recent days come under right-wing fire. But that, too, was a nuanced decision. Holmes was limited in keeping Iriarte-Valdez in custody due to an April 30 state Supreme Court decision that determined it was unconstitutional to hold most defendants in custody on bail they can’t afford. Holmes, a former prosecutor whom Newsom appointed to the bench in 2024, did not respond to a request for comment.
Iriarte-Valdez’s case has also sparked scrutiny over the Supreme Court ruling, which prosecutors throughout California, including San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, have raised concerns about for the last several months.
“Judges are in a very, very difficult spot,” said Greg Totten, CEO of the California District Attorneys Association. “They can have someone in front of them that they’re really concerned about public safety, that this person is going to go out and offend. But they can’t afford bail.”
Contra Costa District Attorney Diana Becton’s office charged Iriarte-Valdez with murder on Monday, and added three enhancements for killing during a burglary, using a knife and committing a crime while out on conditional release. He faces life without parole. His next hearing is Sept. 9 in Richmond.
“Our office will pursue this case with diligence and integrity to hold Iriarte-Valdez fully accountable under the law for this devastating act of violence,” Becton said in a statement.