Bel Air is an unlikely ground zero for this nation’s ongoing immigration debate, yet the arrest of 23-year-old Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, a native of El Salvador who is alleged to have entered the United States illegally, for the rape and murder of Rachel Hannah Morin has thrust Harford County into the center of that political stage.

The murder of Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five who went missing after going for a walk on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in August, was horrifying. The suspect, now held in a Tulsa, Oklahoma, county jail, has a criminal history that includes a charge that he killed a young woman in El Salvador just one month prior to his February 2023 entry into the U.S. Only through some excellent police work involving the FBI and DNA evidence were investigators eventually able to track down the alleged assailant. All that is to be commended and, if Martinez-Hernandez is proven guilty, we trust that justice will be done.

We are less optimistic, however, that this incident will somehow help elucidate the nation’s broken immigration system, which has been politicized beyond recognition. With the arrest, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler has suddenly found himself the darling of right-wing media by blasting the White House’s “failed immigration policy.” That included Fox News host Sean Hannity who conveniently ignored how the sheriff has blamed Congress, too, when he appeared as a guest on his show Monday evening. “To 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and to every member of both chambers of Congress: We are 1,800 miles away from the southern border here in Harford County and the American citizens are not safe because of failed immigration policy,” Gahler has said. Readers will recall that bipartisan immigration reform legislation collapsed earlier this year in the face of Republican opposition — a truly regrettable act of partisanship encouraged by former President Donald Trump, who sees the issue through self-serving tunnel vision.

Yet even that is an inadequate review of current circumstances. Too often, what’s happening at the southern border is framed as a debate over how best to keep people out. But that’s just part of the challenge. Of course, no country should be happy about the presence of murderers and rapists, whether they journey from border states or are native-born — the far more common makeup of the Harford County criminal docket. But this country also desperately needs legal immigration to help alleviate labor shortages and lower inflation. President Joe Biden’s executive action announced Tuesday, which would allow certain undocumented spouses and children of U.S. citizens to apply for lawful permanent residency, isn’t just a humane approach (or even a potential boost for Biden’s candidacy in swing states like Michigan), it’s a way to keep families intact while benefiting the overall economy.

The case of Martinez-Hernandez is an outlier. Studies have long documented how immigrants, including those in the country illegally, are less likely to be arrested or imprisoned for violent crime than native-born Americans are, as the Brennan Center for Justice recently summarized. So why are so many of us prone to seeing new arrivals more as a threat than as a benefit? Our polarized national politics do not help, but it’s also not difficult to see some level of racism here, as fear of nonwhites seems more easily stirred. There are many Americans who will watch the movie “Sound of Music” each year and root for the Von Trapp family to leave Austria illegally, but they can’t watch the latest news clips from the Mexico border with any sympathy for Venezuelan families fleeing violence and persecution. Perhaps if they sang.

A few more myths to be busted: The U.S. allows less immigration than most wealthy countries. Undocumented immigrants are less likely to tap welfare benefits than native-born residents, as U.S. Census data shows. And these new arrivals do not weaken or undermine American institutions including elections. As for terrorism, have we already forgotten the 9/11 hijackers arrived through legal entry points using fraudulent travel documents?

Finally, we can only hope that having this terrible event dragged onto the national stage to score cheap political points will not cause further injury to Rachel Hannah Morin’s family and friends. Better to celebrate her memory — as demonstrated by last year’s community walk on the Ma & Pa trail that attracted hundreds — than to exploit her death.