It was sad news the day after Christmas when I saw one particular photo making the rounds on social media. It was a picture of Corporal Ronil Singh with his wife, their young son, and his K-9 partner. The caption read that the photo was taken just hours before Singh was gunned down.

As the son of a police officer, I grew up knowing that was something that might happen. At least, on an intellectual level, I did. However, I don’t think I was remotely prepared for the reality.

Imagine my anger at learning Cpl. Singh was shot by a man who isn’t even supposed to be in this country?

The suspect sought in connection with the murder of a California cop earlier this week is in the U.S. illegally, authorities revealed on Thursday.

The unidentified man alleged to be behind the slaying of Newman police Cpl. Ronil Singh, 33, “is considered armed and dangerous,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said during a news conference on Thursday afternoon, vowing that the manhunt would “relentlessly continue.”

“This suspect … is in our country illegally. He doesn’t belong here. He is a criminal. We will find him, we will arrest him, we will bring him to justice,” Christianson said.

While California has opened its doors to illegal immigrants while slamming them on law-abiding gun owners, they’ve created a state where they are endorsing criminal behavior.

Perhaps the most poignant point of all of this?

Ronil Singh was himself, an immigrant.

Singh was a native of Fiji and left behind a wife and 5-month-old son. The officer, who joined the force in the summer of 2011, was remembered fondly by the Newman police chief, who said Singh “truly loved what he did.”

“He came to this country with one purpose, and that was to serve this country,” Chief Randy Richardson said, declaring that “a coward took his life.”

In other words, California has done everything they can to create this kind of environment. They’ve done all they can to foster this behavior. They favor the criminal over the police, the law-abiding and armed citizen, and anyone else who wants to do the right thing. Instead, they welcome people into their state who broke the law in just coming here and what happens?

A law-abiding citizen, a police officer, ends up paying the price for it.

Now, a few things need to be made clear. While California is notorious for their sanctuary cities, it doesn’t look like Newman is one of those cities. It appears that they have enough sense to recognize that immigration is a federal issue and they don’t need to be screwing around.

Unfortunately, Newman is paying the price for other California cities’ insane policies regarding immigration.

I can’t help but think that this is an almost a perfect encapsulation of the entire immigration debate. A law-abiding immigrant who does everything right to come to the United States ends up losing his life due to someone who came here illegally thanks to policies created by those who can’t seem to tell the difference between the two.