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MILWAUKEE — Immigration is often cited in polls as one of the most important issues facing the United States right now.
It’s one of the topics Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump is expected to talk about during his visit to Prairie du Chien this weekend, too. Police there arrested a Venezuelan man earlier this month who is accused of assaulting two victims. Now, some Republicans are raising concerns about other crimes.
Republican candidates up and down the ballot, from U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden and U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde to Trump himself, have pointed to examples in Wisconsin as to why they are worried about people committing crimes who enter and live in the country illegally.
Spectrum News 1 dug into some of those cases to get a better understanding of what happened as Trump gets ready to hold a rally Saturday in the town where one of those alleged crimes occurred.
The small city of Prairie du Chien along the Mississippi River, about two hours straight west of Madison, has garnered lots of headlines recently.
Police arrested a man they claim was physically and sexually violent toward a woman and her daughter. He is not a U.S. citizen, and after investigating for several weeks, police also believe he has ties to a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua.
Court documents state Alejandro Jose Coronel Zarate assaulted a woman who drove him from Madison to Prairie du Chien. The victim’s daughter, under the age of 17, was also hurt as part of an altercation. Prairie du Chien police said it was “not a random event” and the suspect and the victims knew each other.
Coronel Zarate was accused of committing a similar crime in Madison. Though he was never caught, there was a warrant out for his arrest.
In a Facebook post to his campaign page, Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett took issue with Republicans trying to make the incident a political issue. He said claims that Dane County let Coronel Zarate go are false, and said it was a “distasteful attempt to gather votes in a battleground state.”
Some Republicans are also expressing concerns that Venezuelan gangs may be responsible for other crimes in Wisconsin, but there is no evidence of that.
State Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, sent out a news release this week after six people were arrested in Outagamie County in July. They are accused of stealing nearly $40,000 from an ATM at Unison Credit Union in Kaukauna.
Court documents state that “surveillance footage showed that money was removed from the ATM 48 times” and one of the suspects had “a universal ATM key.”
Five of the suspects arrested had IDs or passports from Venezuela and one had a Florida ID card. Most were apparently living in Minnesota, while one lived in Texas and another in Florida, according to court records.
Neither the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office nor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were able to tell Spectrum News 1 the suspects' legal statuses. However, in an email, Kaukauna Chief of Police Jamie Graff stated, “During our investigation we could not confirm they were a part of the Tren de Aragua gang. I have no evidence that Venezuelan gangs are in Kaukauna.”
Spectrum News 1 also reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Milwaukee and was referred to the "Crime in the Nation" 2023 report, which shows an estimated 3% drop in violent crime nationwide compared to last year.
In his statement, State Rep. Murphy also called upon Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, to “set up a task force to nip this in the bud before it gets out of control.”
A spokesperson for the state Dept. of Justice told Spectrum News 1 since the agency isn’t involved in the cases it won’t weigh in.
There have also been other reports in Whitewater of migrants being tied to an increase in the number of unlicensed drivers in the community.
Though there is no hard evidence, the local police chief said the number of arrests has gone up since more migrants stated moving to the area.