DENVER -- Using it as an example of "growing frustration" with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents, both Aurora police and the Arapahoe County Sheriff on Monday blamed their federal counterparts for failing to check the citizenship status of Francis Hernandez.

The 23-year-old is the suspect in a crash Thursday night that sent two vehicles, an SUV and a pickup truck, careening into the side of a building. Two women in the truck, 49-year-old Patricia Guntharp and 51-year-old Debra Serecky, died. So did 3-year-old Marten Kudlis, who was simply waiting for ice cream with his mother inside the Baskin Robbins in Aurora.

Soon, the grief turned to anger for some of the family members as they learned Hernandez had been arrested at least 16 times before the crash by agencies all over Colorado, yet was never picked up by the same federal group that now says he's illegally here.

But late Tuesday, an ICE spokesman in Minnesota told 7NEWS that local ICE agents in Colorado spent hours Tuesday with staffers at both the Aurora Police Department and the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office, finding no record of any inquiry supposedly sent to them on April 25, after Hernandez was arrested again during a traffic stop in Aurora.

Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson believes the illegal immigration issue is one of his top five or six daily priorities. Currently, 103 of the roughly 1,300 inmates in his jail have ICE holds placed on them, including Hernandez, he said.

"Across the state of Colorado those ICE detainees held in local jails are typically running somewhere between nine and 12 percent of the local jail population," Robinson said.

He also told 7NEWS that he could find no record of the e-mail he believed his deputies had sent to ICE in April, requesting a closer look at Hernandez.

Tim Counts, an ICE Public Affairs spokesman, told 7NEWS his agency is working hard in Colorado. During fiscal year 2007, the Denver ICE Office of Detention and Removal deported 5,594 illegal immigrants from Colorado. Through Aug. 4 of this fiscal year, the Denver ICE office has deported 4,792 illegal aliens, Counts wrote.

In addition, last year ICE's Criminal Alien Program (CAP) identified 4,545 illegal aliens in Colorado jails and prisons, and placed them in deportation proceedings. This fiscal year, through June 30, the CAP had identified 4,505 illegal aliens in Colorado's jails and prisons, with three weeks remaining in the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

"ICE will continue to work with all our Colorado law enforcement partners to make our communities and our nation a safer place," Counts said.

He did not criticize either law enforcement group for quickly pointing the finger at his agency.