The widows of two police officers the Mexican immigrant murdered were invited to US President Donald Trump's 2017 address to Congress.
The conservative Breitbart News faithfully chronicled his conviction and death sentence.
His snarling, expletive-filled rant about killing police officers appeared in a little-noticed January 2018 Trump campaign ad.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
Now, Luis Bracamontes' menacing smile has abruptly taken a central role in Trump's closing midterm election argument about immigration as the president tweeted out a video of the Latino man's courtroom appearance in what was immediately denounced by some Democrats and Republicans as a racist campaign tactic.
Bracamontes, an immigrant living in the country illegally, sports a shaved head and long chin hair and speaks in accented English in the video, and his words are clear: He's killed cops and he's "gonna kill more cops soon".
The video, which Trump tweeted late on Wednesday, alleges without evidence that Democrats were responsible for allowing Bracamontes into the US.
It comes amid a frenzy of hardline immigration proposals pushed out by Trump in the final stages of the campaign, including sending troops to the border and revoking birthright citizenship.
Bracamontes, a twice-deported immigrant from Mexico, was sentenced to death in California for the 2014 killings.
The 53-second video includes expletives uttered by Bracamontes during his trial as he professed regret at not killing more officers.
"Illegal immigrant, Luis Bracamontes, killed our people!," the video states, adding, "Democrats let him into our country ... Democrats let him stay."
It includes scenes of a migrant caravan moving toward the US, warning ominously, "Who else would Democrats let in?" and suggesting that more violence would soon penetrate the border.
The ad was reminiscent of the infamous "Willie Horton" ad used against Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988 and condemned as racist.
Horton, who was black, raped a woman while out of prison on a weekend furlough. As Massachusetts governor, Dukakis supported the furlough program. Dukakis went on to lose to Republican George H.W. Bush.
The video tweeted by Trump did not immediately appear to be running on television - it has a runtime longer than most TV ads - although it received extensive coverage on cable news networks.
As of Thursday afternoon, it had received 3.51 million views in less than 24 hours and was the "pinned" tweet atop Trump's profile, meaning it was the first thing any visitor to his Twitter page would see.
The White House and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comments as to who made or paid for the video or if any tax dollars were used to run it from the president's account.
"This is a sickening ad. Republicans everywhere should denounce it," said Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, a frequent Trump critic.
Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called the new ad the "dog whistle of all dog whistles".
"This is distracting, divisive Donald at his worst," Perez said on CNN. "This is fearmongering."
