(The Center Square) – U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement officers in Miami, working with multiple Florida law enforcement agencies, arrested nearly 800 illegal foreign nationals.

“In a first-of-its-kind partnership between state and federal partners, ICE Miami and Florida law enforcement arrested nearly 800 illegal aliens this week during the first four days of #OperationTidalWave – a massive, multi-agency, immigration enforcement crackdown,” it said.

Among those arrested were “a Colombian murderer, alleged MS-13 and 18th Street gang members and a Russian with a red notice for manslaughter,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a White House press briefing Monday morning.

Florida is the only state in the country where all state and local law enforcement agencies in all Florida counties are participating in ICE’s 287g program. This includes the Florida Department of Law Enforcement state troopers, sheriff’s offices and police departments in all 67 Florida counties.

“I think the main reason why this operation is significant is because it’s the first of its kind,” Todd Lyons, acting ICE director, told ABC News. “It’s one that not only we’ve been doing what we have, but we have surged all our federal partners together along with Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement [and] Removal Operations, which are all the enforcement arms of ICE, but we’re also using all our 287(g) partners in the state of Florida. We’re using state, local and county law enforcement agencies to assist us in our operations.”

Of the nearly 800 arrested, Florida law enforcement officials were involved with 275 arrests of illegal foreign nationals who already had final orders of removal from a federal immigration judge and hadn’t been removed from the country.

In response to the operation, Gov. Ron DeSantis said, “Florida is leading the nation in active cooperation with the Trump administration for immigration enforcement and deportation operations!”

“State troopers, local police officers, county sheriffs – they’re our eyes and ears,” Lyons said. “They encountered these criminal aliens out and about during their regular duties, and they’re able to go ahead and identify those public safety threats for us.”

The Trump administration has been prioritizing the most dangerous criminals for removal first, The Center Square reported.

Previous ICE arrests in Florida were of a Cuban intelligence officer and violent foreign nationals previously deported multiple times. They include men from the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico who’d been arrested for human smuggling, convicted for violent crimes and previously served prison time, The Center Square reported.

ICE agents also arrested alleged Chinese spies, human smugglers and violent criminals, including a Chinese-Canadian national charged with three counts of using an unmanned aircraft to photograph defense installations and equipment at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Air and Marine Operations agents are also disrupting maritime smuggling events, arresting illegal foreign nationals from China, Ecuador, Colombia and the Dominican Republic.

In another multi-agency operation in Palm Beach County, ICE and Border Patrol agents arrested illegal foreign nationals with convictions for a range of crimes. Their convictions included drug possession, prostitution, illegal re-entry, resisting an officer, robbery, probation violation, fraud (illegal use of a credit card), larceny, cocaine possession, driving under the influence and possession of stolen property. Those arrested and processed for removal were citizens of Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela – all living in the U.S. illegally, The Center Square reported.

(The Center Square) – American voters are focused on prices, tariffs and illegal immigration as President Donald Trump approaches the 100-day mark of his second term in the White House, which is Tuesday. 

The Center Square Voter’s Voice Poll found that immigration issues, which helped put Trump win the White House, have fallen in importance for voters. Trump has made progress on issues at the border since taking office, which voters have recognized. The poll found that 47% of those surveyed said federal policy on immigration and border security has “gotten better,” compared to 32% who say it has “gotten worse.”

“Immigration has become a second-tier issue in terms of importance; things like inflation [and] tariffs and trade have knocked it out of its spot,” said David Byler, head of research at Noble Predictive Insights.

Concerns about inflation and high prices remain a top issue for voters, with 41% saying it was among their top three issues. And it remains a weak point for Trump, who promised to tame inflation and bring down prices on the campaign trail. The newest issue that voters are worried about is tariffs and international trade, with 33% of voters reporting it was among their top three issues. Illegal immigration was at 26%, followed by the economy and jobs at 25%. That was tied with concerns about government corruption. Healthcare stood at 21% and affordable housing at 15%. 

After that, it was high taxes (14%), national debt (13%), national security (13%), federal rollback of DEI policies (12%), abortion rights (10%), climate change (9%), education (9%), stock market instability (9%), other (4%), and at the bottom was race relations at 3%.

The poll question showed voters are more focused on pocketbook issues than social ones, with concerns about prices and tariffs at the top. That presents Trump with challenges as he seeks to re-order global trade. Trump announced a slate of tariffs on April 2, which he called “Liberation Day” for American trade. Seven days later, on April 9, he paused nearly all of those higher rates that Trump calls reciprocal. Trump said the pause would last 90 days as his trade team talks with more than 75 other nations. However, Trump maintained a 10% baseline tariff and a 145% import duty on goods from China. 

Economists, businesses, and a growing number of publicly traded companies have warned that tariffs could push up prices on a large swath of consumer products. Trump has said he wants to use tariffs to bring back manufacturing jobs lost to lower-wage countries in decades past, shift the tax burden away from U.S. families and pay down national debt.

Many companies and industry groups have raised price concerns even for products made in the U.S. because tariffs on imported raw materials could boost prices.

A tariff is a tax on imported goods. The importer pays the tax and can either absorb the loss or pass the cost on to consumers through higher prices.

The poll was conducted by Noble Predictive Insights from April 15-18, 2025, and surveyed registered voters nationally via an opt-in online panel and text-to-web cell phone messages. The sample included 2,527 respondents, comprised of 1,089 Republicans, 1,187 Democrats, and 251 True Independents, which Noble Predictive defines as independents who chose neither when asked if they lean toward one of the major parties.

The poll weighted each party – Republicans, Democrats, and True Independents – independently. In other words, the Republican subsample is weighted so it matches the national Republican population, and the same is true for Democrats and True Independents. Additional weighting variables include age, region, gender, education, and race/ethnicity.

The margin of error was +/- 2.0%.

(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.