NEWARK, NJ - In 2017, Martin Martinez-Ballinas received a felony conviction in Maryland for a deadly automotive crash that killed a United States Marine. Martinez-Ballinas was deported, but decided on two occasions to illegally reenter the United States. According to a news release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Martinez-Ballinas is once again scheduled to be deported after ICE took custody of him at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where he was serving time for a previous deportation violation.
“Martinez-Ballinas repeatedly and flagrantly disregarded the laws of the United States and faces deportation for the third time,” said ERO Newark Acting Field Office Director Arthur J. Wilson, Jr. “His conviction for an automotive offense that resulted in the tragic loss of a U.S. Marine in 2017 demonstrates a complete lack of respect for human life and our legal system. Anyone who believes violations of U.S. immigration law are trivial or inconsequential should take note: Federal offenses carry serious consequences, and we will continue to enforce the law to protect our communities and honor those who serve our nation.”
In response to his latest pending deportation, the father of James Ray Walden III, the United States Marine tragically killed by Martinez-Ballinas, is speaking out, according to Fox News Digital.
James Walden Jr. said that Martinez-Ballinas was operating without a license or insurance when he crossed into the opposite lane and struck his son’s motorcycle head on. What infuriated him even more is that Maryland officials knew Martinez-Ballinas was in the country illegally and he had been arrested five times between 2012 and 2017 but that state’s sanctuary policy allowed him to walk each time.
Walden said his son was an “accomplished Marine and gifted intelligence analyst” who had a bright future until his life was taken from him by an illegal alien.
“He was extremely good at what he did. His NSA boss told me that he was one of the most gifted analysts he’d ever worked with. And they were wanting him, once he got out of the Marine Corps, to come to work for them.
“And all that ended in the blink of an eye.”
Walden then turned his attention to Democrats who are seeking to abolish ICE.
"It’s got to be one of the most insane ideas I’ve ever heard of,” he told Fox News Digital. “I cannot believe that they’re condemning our ICE agents and our DHS for actually doing their job and enforcing the laws that Congress passed.”
Walden was asked what message he would like to send to sanctuary politicians seeking to eliminate ICE.
“You’re never gonna understand the pain, the hole in your soul that this brings until it happens to you,” he said. “And don’t think that it can’t. It can happen to anyone at any time. My son was minding his own business. He’d gone for a ride after work, doing nothing wrong, and his life was taken.
“You can’t predict it but you can prevent it.”
Despite being removed from the United States in 2020 after completing his sentence for the 2017 crash that killed Walden III, Martinez-Ballinas reentered the country during the Biden-Mayorkas open-borders era beginning in 2021. He was arrested trying to cross the border in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, was convicted of illegal reentry, and sentenced to 15 months in prison. He was removed by ICE a second time in October 2022. However, he was able to reenter the United States undetected. He was ultimately apprehended in Maryland in December 2023.
He remains in ICE custody pending his one-way trip back to Mexico.
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