Todd Stewart was 68 years old, retired, and working in his garage in Martinez, California on August 6 when he noticed someone burglarizing the house next door. He walked outside to confront the intruder. Surveillance video captured what happened next — Stewart screaming in pain as he was stabbed on his own front lawn.
The man police arrested for his murder had been in custody days earlier. ICE had asked California to hold him. California refused.
Marcos Iriarte-Valdez is a 36-year-old Venezuelan national who was originally admitted to the United States legally in 2007, during the George W. Bush administration. By April 29, 2026, he'd racked up arrests for two residential burglaries in Orinda, assault on his girlfriend, inflicting corporal injury on a spouse, DUI, hit-and-run, trespassing, and receiving stolen property. A judge released him to home detention.
On August 4 — a Sunday — Iriarte-Valdez was arrested again for violating the terms of his home detention monitoring. The next day, August 5, Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Nichelle Holmes, a Gavin Newsom appointee, released him on his own recognizance. One day later, Todd Stewart was dead.
ICE had placed a federal detainer on Iriarte-Valdez. According to Fox News @ Night host Trace Gallagher, "the detainer was ignored three times, including after allegations of felony burglary." Three separate times, federal immigration authorities asked California to notify them before releasing this man. Three times, California's sanctuary law said no.
White House border czar Thomas Homan put it plainly on Fox & Friends: "We did our job. We located this person in their facility. Just call us before you release him." That's the ask. Not round-the-clock surveillance. Not a deportation flight. A phone call.
Homan didn't stop there. "This person is dead because Governor Newsom and the State of California put politics — hatred of President Trump — over public safety."
Contra Costa County District Attorney Diane Becton released a statement: "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."
Iriarte-Valdez was arrested on August 12 by a SWAT team at his Martinez home. Bail was initially set at $1.1 million before Judge David Goldstein ordered him held without bail. He pleaded not guilty. He faces one count of murder with special circumstances — murder committed during a burglary — which carries a potential sentence of life without parole. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for September 1 in Richmond.
Newsom's office responded to the case with a statement that read, in part: "Nothing in California law prevents federal authorities from enforcing immigration law." Which is technically true in the same way that nothing prevents you from putting out a house fire with a garden hose from across the street. The sanctuary law doesn't block ICE from doing its own enforcement — it just bars local jails from cooperating. It's the legislative equivalent of unplugging someone's phone and then saying you never told them not to make calls.