The defense attorney representing the man charged with murdering 20-year-old college student Mollie Tibbetts says his client’s illegal alien status “has nothing to do with this case.”

Last month, police announced that Tibbetts’ body was found in a cornfield in her rural hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa after she was last seen jogging on July 18.

Illegal alien Cristhian Bahena-Rivera, a 24-year-old from Mexico, has been charged with first-degree murder in Tibbetts’ death after police say he admitted to confronting and chasing down the young woman. The illegal alien lived in a region of Iowa that was surrounded by sanctuary cities, as Breitbart News noted, and an initial autopsy report revealed that Bahena-Rivera allegedly stabbed Tibbetts to death.

After pleading not guilty this week and having his trial set for April 2019, Bahena-Rivera’s defense attorney, Chad Frese, told the Des Moines Register in an interview that the fact that his client is an illegal alien who has been living in the United States illegally for years “has nothing to do with” the death of Tibbetts or the upcoming murder trial.

“Our focus is Cristhian’s charge that he’s facing and the death of this woman,” Frese told Register reporter Stephen Gruber-Miller.

“Whether or not he’s an illegal or legal immigrant really has nothing to do with the facts of this case, so we don’t want to get into that argument at all,” Frese continued.

Bahena-Rivera was rewarded $5,000 in U.S. taxpayer money to fund a private investigation into Tibbetts’ death to fight the murder charges against him, Breitbart News reported. Frese argued in court that the illegal alien had a “constitutional right” to the taxpayer money.

Illegal alien accused of murdering Mollie Tibbetts says he doesn't remember the attack. https://t.co/SPl8RubtIM — John Binder 👽 (@JxhnBinder) September 16, 2018