The Department of Justice has reportedly issued and arrest warrant for Jose Inez Garcia Zarate. The illegal immigrant was acquitted of murdering Kate Steinle in 2015 after he fired a gun he had found and the ricochet lodged in Steinle’s back, leaving her to die in her father’s arms.

A huge wave of controversy followed the verdict, with many claiming San Fransisco’s ultra-progressive sanctuary city policies led to the death of Steinle. Zarate had been deported five times and had up to seven criminal convictions and yet the city refused to hand him over to ICE authorities.

NEW: Dept. of Justice has filed an arrest warrant for Jose Garcia Zarate, the man acquitted of murder in Kate Steinle's 2015 San Francisco shooting death.

— CBS News (@CBSNews) December 1, 2017

BREAKING NEWS: The Department of Justice filed an arrest warrant for Jose Inez Garcia Zarate, the illegal immigrant acquitted Thursday in Kate Steinle’s murder trial. https://t.co/U7ujooSxGv pic.twitter.com/fWqRbrlxBm

— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) December 1, 2017

This story is breaking minute to minute and at the time of publication no mention of the charges has been published. However, Redstate legal blogger Sarah Rumpf  explained that Zarate was not necessarily free and clear and there were other pending charges in his future.

[One quick but important note: Garcia Zarate is not going free. The jury did convict him of a lesser charge of being a felon in possession of a gun, and he now awaits sentencing, which will be 16 months, two years, or three years in state prison. He has already served two years and will get credit for that time, but even if he is not given the maximum sentence, there is an outstanding U.S. Marshals Service warrant against him, and despite the sanctuary cities policy, San Francisco apparently does turn over undocumented immigrants to the feds when they have a warrant. So he is either getting deported, or spending more time in prison first, and then getting deported.]

It’s important to remember that Trump did run on border security and used the Steinle case as a clarion call of sorts. This could be the administration’s attempt to get in front of whatever bull the state of California is going to try to pull to defend an illegal alien, criminal and murderer. Trump’s ICE may be trying to reassert their mandate and provide a little cold comfort for the Steinle family.

This story is still breaking.

UPDATE: Officials report they are hoping to deport Zarate and the DOJ says a federal detainer requires him to be remanded to the U.S.Marshals service to be moved to Texas.