Deportation steps in place
REGAN FOSTER

An announcement by a neighboring county’s top cop has raised the question of immigration enforcement here.

Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran made headlines last week by announcing that he had submitted an application for a federal program that trains local law-enforcement officers to begin deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants convicted of certain crimes.

That makes the Lake County Sheriff’s Office the fifth state agency to submit an application, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement statistics show. The program has raised the ire of immigrant activists, who say it would increase racial profiling and make immigrants less likely to report crimes against them.

Curran said that the training would be for the detention officers who were in the jail and who processed and supervised inmates.

“We’re talking about child molesters, murderers, people who have committed aggravated battery,â€