Ronil Singh, the Newman, California, police officer who was killed on Dec. 26 by an alleged illegal alien, was himself an immigrant — a legal immigrant.

That fact was noted by Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson in his news conference Thursday: “Unlike Ron, who immigrated to this country lawfully and legally to pursue his lifelong career of public safety, public service in being a police officer, this suspect is in our country illegally.”

Newman Police Chief Randy Richardson, fighting through tears, also noted that “Singh immigrated to the United States from Fiji, determined to be a police officer. He commuted more than two and a half hours from his home to the police academy in Yuba City, which he put himself through,” as quoted by the local Modesto Bee.

In a moving tribute, the Los Angeles Times reported: “Singh, who was Indo-Fijian, came to the U.S. from Fiji about 20 years ago, his family said. He volunteered with the Modesto Police Department and was a Turlock Police Department cadet. He spent part of his career with the Merced County Sheriff’s Office as a reserve deputy sheriff.”

President Donald Trump noted that Singh had likely been killed because of lax border security — the core of his ongoing fight with Democrats over funding for a border wall.

He tweeted Thursday:

There is right now a full scale manhunt going on in California for an illegal immigrant accused of shooting and killing a police officer during a traffic stop. Time to get tough on Border Security. Build the Wall! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 27, 2018

The search for the suspect continues.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.