An illegal immigrant was arrested and charged in the August 2023 rape and murder of a mother of five on a hiking trail, a Maryland sheriff announced Saturday.

Authorities in Oklahoma arrested 23-year-old Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez for the rape and murder of 37-year-old Rachel Morin Friday night, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler said during a Saturday afternoon news conference. Gahler said Martinez-Hernandez entered the United States illegally after committing a murder in El Salvador. (RELATED: ‘No Sign Of A Backlash’: CNN Data Guru Says More Foreign-Born Voters Back Trump Over Biden)

“It is my understanding that this suspect, this monster, fled to the United States after the murder of a young woman in El Salvador a month earlier in January of 2023,” Gahler told reporters. “Once in our country, he brutally attacked a nine-year-old girl and her mother in a home invasion in March of 2023 in Los Angeles.”

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“Victor Hernandez did not come here to make a better life for himself or for his family. He came here to escape with crimes committed in El Salvador,” Gahler added. “He came here and murdered Rachel and God willing no one else. But that should have never been allowed to happen.”

Police in Los Angeles wanted Martinez-Hernandez for his role in the March 2023 home invasion, seeking him on charges of assault and residential burglary, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Illegal immigration has become a prominent issue in the 2024 campaign after a series of crimes involving illegal immigrants. In February, Jose Antonio Ibarra, an immigrant from Venezuela who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, was arrested by University of Georgia police and charged with murdering 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley

Only 32% of voters approve of President Joe Biden’s handling of immigration, according to the RealClearPolling average of polls from May 15 to June 11, while 60% disapprove of his handling of the issue.

United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported more than 7 million encounters the Border Patrol had with illegal immigrants since the start of fiscal year 2021.

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