Associated Press - July 6, 2007 5:34 PM ET

WICHITA (AP) - One of Kansas' highest profile Hispanic activists is so disillusioned with immigration reform efforts he plans to return to Mexico to join his wife and their daughter.

Dennis Romero is a convicted human smuggler and co-chairman of the Peoples Alliance for Latino Advancement in Kansas. He says he has given up and plans to go back to Mexico as soon as he is off parole.

Without amnesty, Romero says he expects raids on illegal immigrants to intensify.

Increased criminal enforcement of immigration laws has reached into Midwestern states far from border areas since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

In recent years, the number of immigration cases prosecuted by the US Attorney's Office in Kansas has tripled. Immigration cases now account for 15% of federal prosecutions in Kansas.

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