(The Center Square) – Texas Department of Public Safety officers continue to find missing children and arrest those on its criminal illegal immigrant most wanted list.

With April being “Child Abuse Prevention Month,” DPS troopers have rescued more than 600 children through its Interdiction for the Protection of Children (IPC) Program, DPS said. IPC officers are trained “to identify victims of exploitation, missing children, crimes against children and high-risk threats against children,” DPS said.

Through Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, DPS troopers rescued more than 900 children illegally brought into the U.S. in Texas alone under the Biden administration, The Center Square reported.

So far this year, DPS and other agencies have arrested 21 Texas 10 Most Wanted fugitives, sex offenders and others, including six sex offenders and seven criminal illegal immigrants – with $25,000 in rewards being paid for tips that yielded arrests, DPS said.

One recent arrest was of a fugitive on Texas’ 10 Most Wanted Criminal Illegal Immigrants List, 46-year-old Mexican national Carlos Ortiz. He was arrested after DPS received a tip through Crime Stoppers.

Ortiz was wanted by authorities in Tarrant County since October 2024 on charges of continuous sexual abuse of a young child. He was arrested at an apartment complex in Haltom City by multiple authorities, including special agents from DPS’ Criminal Investigations Division, Haltom City Police and U.S. Marshals North Texas Fugitive Task Force.

Since 2008, Ortiz had been arrested in Tarrant County for assault causing bodily injury to a family member and driving while intoxicated, according to DPS records.

Another fugitive arrested on Texas’ 10 Most Wanted Criminal Illegal Immigrants List was 25-year-old Honduran national Anderson Ronaldo Reyes Giron. He was arrested in north central Austin and wanted by authorities in Travis County since February for deadly conduct (discharging a firearm) and in Williamson County since March on property theft charges.

He was first arrested under the Trump administration in January 2017 by U.S. Customs and Border Protection “for alien removal.” By August 2024, he was arrested by the Austin Police Department officers for deadly conduct (discharging a firearm) and subsequently bonded out of jail, according to DPS records.

Through the governor’s Public Safety Office, taxpayer money is allocated to Texas Crime Stoppers to offer cash rewards to anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest of one of Texas’ 10 Most Wanted Fugitives, Sex Offenders or Criminal Illegal Immigrants. To be eligible for cash rewards, tipsters must provide information to authorities by calling the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-252-TIPS (8477), submitting a tip through DPS website or Facebook page.

“All tips are anonymous – regardless of how they are submitted – and tipsters will be provided a tip number instead of using a name,” DPS says.

As offenders are arrested and come off of the lists, others are added.

Two recent additions include U.S. citizens, Rondarrius Evans, 21, of New Boston, to the Texas 10 Most Wanted Fugitives List and Rodolfo Martinez Jr., 42, to the Texas 10 Most Wanted Sex Offenders List.

Evans is wanted by authorities in Bowie County since last August on two capital murder charges and drug charges. Martinez Jr. is wanted in Harris County since last November for indecency with a child by sexual contact.

Texas Crime Stoppers is offering cash rewards for tips that lead to their arrests.

(The Center Square) – A plurality of Americans say the Department of Government Efficiency is cutting too much, according to a new poll. 

Backing for cutting waste, fraud and abuse generally earns praise from Americans, but DOGE’s push for mass layoffs and shuttering entire agencies soured many voters.

The Center Square Voter’s Voice poll released this week asked registered voters about DOGE and found that 47% of those surveyed said “DOGE is cutting too much.” 

Another 28% said “DOGE is getting it right” while 12% said “DOGE is not cutting enough.” The remaining 14% are unsure. 

Support for DOGE varies widely by political party. According to The Center Square’s survey, only 19% of Republicans say DOGE is cutting too much, while 48% said DOGE is getting it right. Another 18% said DOGE is not cutting enough. 

Democrats reported the opposite sentiment, with 75% saying DOGE is cutting too much and only 10% saying DOGE is getting it right while 5% said DOGE should cut more. 

Notably, 49% of “true independents” say DOGE is cutting too much, compared to only 15% who say DOGE is getting it right and 13% who say DOGE is not cutting enough. In this poll, true independents are independents who say they do not lean toward one party or the other. 

DOGE’s backers said cutting hard and fast was the only way to make a difference before the bureaucracy could respond, pointing to rampant federal fraud and abuse as well as the soaring national debt, which is approaching $37 trillion. 

Democrats blasted DOGE, saying the many of the services being were important and that DOGE leader Elon Musk and his DOGE workers had too much access to Americans’ private information. 

A separate poll question asked registered voters their feelings about Musk. The poll found 39% approve of Musk’s role with DOGE compared to 55% who disapprove. POlitical party makes a significant difference in this question as well, with 71% of Republicans approving of Musk, compared to only 10% of Democrats.

“What you see is Elon Musk has a worse favorability than Donald Trump,” David Byler, chief of research at Noble Predictive Insights, which carried out the poll, told The Center Square. 

“This is a consistent finding over polls, so having him as the figurehead is probably not helping,” Byler added.

Musk is reportedly pulling away from his heavy involvement with DOGE to focus on his private companies, including Tesla. 

The Center Square’s Voter’s Voice poll, conducted with Noble Predictive Insights from April 15-18, queried 2,527 registered voters. Of those respondents, 1,089 were Republicans, 1,187 were Democrats, and 251 were “True Independents,” which are independents who do not lean to one party or the other. The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll is one of only six national tracking polls in the United States. It was scheduled to coincide with Trump’s 100th day in office, which is Tuesday, April 29.

The survey has a +/- 2.0% margin of error. 

(The Center Square) – A nonprofit organization’s investigation tracked down donations equal to over $300 million in funding to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at dozens of colleges and universities across the U.S., while also reporting that the DEI funds still exist after the federal government’s termination efforts and have been simply renamed.

“We have been able to track down over $336,271,100 in donations to fund institution DEI programs, scholarships, and offices,” a report on Defending Education’s investigation stated.

Defending Education is a nonprofit that works to “restore schools at all levels from activists imposing harmful agendas,” according to its website.

The millions of dollars are from 273 different DEI funds in 130 different colleges and universities across 44 states and the District of Columbia, according to Defending Education.

“American universities, especially in the wake of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, have established funds that focus on the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) inside the institutions,” Defending Education’s report said.

“The purpose of these funds range from the establishment of identity-based scholarships to funding DEI related programming on campuses,” according to the report.

Defending Education’s report states that often initiatives often are simply renamed.

“In some cases that are captured in this report, universities just rebranded the fund(s) or program,” the report said, giving an example of the University of Nebraska Lincoln’s “Office of Diversity and Inclusion Fund” being renamed to the “Community and Belonging Support Fund,” while retaining the same account number.

“While President Trump’s Executive Orders have incentivized universities to take down webpages and halt DEI related programmings, it does not mean that these institutions are necessarily ending these practices permanently,” the report said.

Trump and his administration have been working to end DEI through executive orders calling for the termination of the philosophy and a Dear Colleague letter stating race-based decisions in education are unlawful.

Defending Education Founder and President Nicole Neily told The Center Square in a statement: “it’s important to remember that this isn’t just a federal issue – states have a role to play in this battle as well.”

“From rescinding state laws mandating minority contracting through to DEI reporting requirements, much of the action and oversight needs to take place at lower levels of government,” Neily said.

Defending Education traced the schools’ DEI funding partly through campaign websites, but mostly through university announcements, webpages, and reports, according to the report. Years covered in the investigation fall mainly between 2021 and the present day.

The report cites examples of the University of Michigan raising over $98 million for DEI initiatives and funds and the University of Delaware raising $21 million “to expand its diversity, equity, and inclusion programming.”

Goldwater Institute Senior Constitutionalism Fellow Timothy K. Minella told The Center Square that “this investigation underscores the need for states to pass targeted legislation that ends DEI programs at public institutions for good, regardless of their funding source.”

“The essence of DEI – treating people differently on account of their race, sexual orientation, and other identity categories – violates the Constitution’s guarantee of the equal protection of the laws,” Minella said.

“Whether the money for these discriminatory programs comes from the state government or private donors, they are still wrong,” Minella said.

“Each state should be following the lead of Texas, Iowa, and many other state governments that have passed Goldwater’s reform to abolish DEI bureaucracies for good,” Minella told The Center Square.