A 68-year-old Martinez, California, retiree was allegedly stabbed to death outside his own home by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant released from jail just 24 hours earlier, and now DHS is demanding the governor hand the suspect over.

Todd Stewart, a father and retiree, confronted Marcos Iriarte-Valdez outside his front yard during what authorities describe as an attempted burglary. Iriarte-Valdez, 36, allegedly stabbed Stewart and then tried to flee. Stewart did not survive. The killing has drawn a direct public confrontation between federal immigration authorities and California Gov. Gavin Newsom over the state's sanctuary policies and a judge's decision to release the suspect on his own recognizance.

DHS posted its demand on social media, calling on Newsom to surrender Iriarte-Valdez to federal custody rather than allow him to remain in the state's criminal justice system. The agency had already placed an immigration detainer on the suspect in September, Fox News reported, a step that should have flagged him for transfer to federal authorities upon release from local custody. California's sanctuary framework, however, restricts local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

A judge freed him despite a detention violation, 24 hours before the killing

Iriarte-Valdez had been in the United States since 2007. He was originally admitted legally during the George W. Bush administration but has since been classified by DHS as an illegal immigrant. His criminal record in Contra Costa County, the Bay Area county that includes Martinez, already included multiple burglary charges linked to at least two separate incidents, plus a conviction for violating a court-ordered protective order.

He was on pretrial release for a residential burglary case when he was jailed the previous Tuesday for allegedly violating the terms of his home detention monitoring. That violation should have been a red flag. Instead, Contra Costa Superior Court Judge Nichelle Holmes released him on his own recognizance, roughly 24 hours before Stewart was killed.

Holmes was appointed to her seat by Newsom in 2024. A 2017 profile published by her law school alma mater described her as a protester. Neither Holmes nor Newsom's office has publicly responded to the DHS demand or addressed the release decision, based on available reporting from the outlets covering the case.

The pattern is not new. In a separate case, two illegal aliens previously released under the Obama administration were charged in the murder of a Florida Marine and father of two, another instance where release decisions preceded fatal violence.

DHS called out Newsom by name and shared video of the struggle

The Department of Homeland Security did not hold back. In a post on X, the agency's official account wrote directly:

"This Venezuelan illegal alien STABBED A FATHER TO DEATH in sanctuary California. @CAgovernor must NOT RELEASE this murderer from jail and turn him over to us so we can REMOVE him from our nation."

A second DHS post shared video footage described as showing the moments Iriarte-Valdez and Stewart struggled on the sidewalk. The caption pressed the political point harder:

"Another innocent American was killed because of California's reckless sanctuary policies. How many more innocent people have to die before Gavin Newsom and sanctuary politicians stop playing games with the safety of Americans?"

DHS also released the full list of charges Iriarte-Valdez now faces: murder, inflicting corporal injury on a spouse, three counts of burglary, receiving known stolen property, trespassing, entering a non-commercial dwelling, loitering, and violation of a court-ordered protective order, along with unspecified sentencing enhancements added by prosecutors.

That charge sheet tells its own story. This was not a man with a single blemish on his record. He had a documented history of burglary, domestic violence, and repeated brushes with the court system, and he was still walking free.

Cases like this are not isolated. An illegal immigrant in New Jersey recently rammed a van into an ICE agent during a traffic stop and fled, underscoring the risks that sanctuary policies create for law enforcement officers and the communities they serve.

Stewart's neighbors describe a man who had just begun enjoying retirement

Todd Stewart had no known connection to his alleged attacker. He was simply at home. Neighbor Galina Pasternak, speaking to the New York Post, described the loss in personal terms:

"I'm still processing because I still expect to see him over the fence. They finally were spending more time together because they were retired. They were traveling."

Stewart, 68, was doing what millions of Americans hope to do at that age, spending time with family, traveling, enjoying the years he had earned. He was confronted in his own front yard by a man who, by every available indicator, should not have been free to be there.

Iriarte-Valdez also holds Spanish citizenship, the New York Post reported. He has been in the country for nearly two decades. His legal admission under the Bush administration at some point gave way to unlawful status, the precise mechanism of that change has not been detailed in any of the reporting, but DHS had already flagged him with an immigration detainer months before the killing.

Federal authorities have moved aggressively in other recent cases involving illegal immigrants and violent crime. ICE initiated deportation proceedings against a Russian illegal immigrant who killed a Minnesota trucker while watching an iPad behind the wheel, a case where federal action followed a preventable death.

Sanctuary policy sat between DHS and the suspect it had flagged

The central question in this case is not complicated. DHS placed a detainer on Iriarte-Valdez. That detainer is a formal request to local authorities: hold this person and notify us before you release him so we can take custody. California's sanctuary framework limits how local jails and courts cooperate with those requests. The result, in this case, was a judge releasing a man with an active federal detainer, a history of burglary, a domestic violence conviction, and a fresh detention violation, and a retiree dead the next day.

DHS framed the killing as a direct consequence of California's refusal to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. The agency's language, "sanctuary politicians" who "stop playing games with the safety of Americans", placed the blame squarely on state policy and on Newsom personally.

Newsom's office has not publicly addressed the demand. Neither has the Contra Costa County District Attorney's office nor the California Attorney General. Whether the state will honor the federal detainer or continue to shield the suspect from transfer remains an open question.

The broader pattern is well documented. A Cuban illegal immigrant released under the Biden-era catch-and-release policy was later charged with drugging and raping a woman in Miami, another case where a release decision preceded violent crime against an American victim.

Open questions the public deserves answered

Several facts remain unclear. What specific violation of home detention monitoring led to Iriarte-Valdez's re-arrest the week before the killing? What reasoning did Judge Holmes apply when she released him on his own recognizance despite that violation and his existing criminal record? Did the court have access to the DHS detainer at the time of the release decision? And what, precisely, caused Iriarte-Valdez's immigration status to shift from lawful to unlawful over the course of his 19 years in the country?

These are not academic questions. Todd Stewart is dead. The man accused of killing him was free because a state-appointed judge opened the door, and a state sanctuary policy kept federal authorities from closing it.

When the system works as designed and a retiree dies in his front yard, the design is the problem.