Crackdown On Illegal Immigrant Criminals
Lauren Leamanczyk
Katie DeLong

http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/9832711.html
WISCONSIN - For the first time in Wisconsin – a crackdown on illegal immigrants who commit crimes. For the families of some victims, it’s about time. For others, this crackdown comes too late.

The federal government's ramped-up efforts to deport illegal immigrants convicted of crimes didn't come soon enough for Kenosha County Deputy Frank Fabiano Jr.

Fabiano, 48, was gunned down while making a traffic stop on May 16. Immediately after Ezeiquiel Lopez, 44, was arrested in the slaying, he was identified as being in the country illegally.

Records show he had been jailed in Kenosha County about a year before that, but it wasn't until about four months later that the county started sending daily e-mails to federal agents in Milwaukee alerting them to inmates who may be in the country illegally.

"He would have popped up on our radar unless he had done an outstanding job of appearing to be a U.S. citizen," said Brent Kriehn, a deportation officer with the Milwaukee office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security.

Kriehn said he was convinced that if the enhanced program had been in place several months earlier, it's unlikely Lopez would have been on the streets.

The agency for the first time has established a criminal alien program in Wisconsin and staffed it with several people, Kriehn said. Deporting illegal immigrants convicted of crimes in America is a higher priority because it's now being viewed as a public safety issue, Kriehn said.

It was also too late for Jake Neuenfeld’s father. His father was killed in a hit and run accident. The driver was an illegal immigrant.

“My son’s father is gone. You know you can’t bring him back. Where these people can be let out of jail and continue to roam free,â€