Preliminary federal government figures show the number of people arrested by Border Patrol agents fell by 25% since President Joe Biden announced new rules restricting asylum access two weeks ago.

The death in Border Patrol custody of an 8-year-old Panamanian girl is the second child migrant fatality in two weeks under government supervision, raising questions about how prepared authorities are to address medical emergencies of people arriving after an often-exhausting journey.

The mother of an 8-year-old girl who died in Border Patrol custody says agents repeatedly ignored pleas to hospitalize her medically fragile daughter as she felt pain in her bones, struggled to breathe and was unable to walk.

Customs agents say they discovered a dolphin skull in luggage left at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

U.S. authorities say iIlegal border crossings by Cubans and Nicaraguans rose sharply in November while overall migration flows were little changed from October.

The Department of Homeland Security says more migrants may be released into the United States to pursue immigration cases when Trump-era asylum restrictions end next week.

Border Patrol agents on horseback engaged in “unnecessary use of force” against non-threatening Haitian immigrants but didn’t whip any with their reins, according to a federal investigation of chaotic scenes along the Texas-Mexico border last fall.

Three crew members of the cargo vessel Simba jumped off the outbound ship into the St. Johns River in the Mayport area on Wednesday morning, according to Customs and Border Protection.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says authorities are prepared for an expected increase in migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border amid plans to lift a public health order that has been used to turn away migrants nearly 2 million times without a chance to seek asylum.

More than 8,600 Russians have sought refuge in the U.S. on the Mexican border in recent months, overwhelmingly using official crossings in San Diego.

As the delta variant fuels an increase of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., some of President Joe Biden’s critics blame the surge on his border policies, which allow some migrants to enter the country to apply for asylum.

As soon as the sun sets, at least 100 migrants crossed through the Rio Grande river by smugglers into the United States. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)ROMA, Texas – As darkness sets on the Rio Grande, U.S. Border Patrol agents hear pumps inflating rafts across the river in Mexico. Roma, a town of 10,000 people with historic buildings and boarded-up storefronts in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, is the latest epicenter of illegal crossings, where growing numbers of families and children are entering the United States to seek asylum. More than 16,000 unaccompanied children were in government custody as of Thursday, including about 5,000 in substandard Customs and Border Protection facilities. A group of Republican senators on Friday visited the Rio Grande Valley, which is the busiest corridor for illegal crossings, and toured a holding facility.

Officials said Customs and Border Protection will use its authority to block products suspected of being produced with forced labor to keep out cotton, tomatoes and related products from the Xinjiang region of northwest China. That is especially true with Chinese cotton that is used to make clothing for export in other countries such as Bangladesh and Vietnam. The U.S. imported about $9 billion worth of cotton goods from China overall last year, according to Brenda Smith, the executive assistant commissioner at Customs and Border Protection's Office of Trade. China denies allegations of rights abuses and forced labor, saying it aims only to promote economic and social development in the region and stamp out radicalism. "The so-called forced labor is nothing but a lie fabricated by certain institutions and individuals in Western countries," he said.

The previous annual high mapped by the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office in Tucson and the nonprofit Humane Borders was 224 migrant deaths in 2010. Despite the increase in deaths, U.S. Border Patrol apprehension figures suggest that the number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in Arizona has actually fallen by almost 50% over 10 years. From January to September 2020, the Border Patrol listed 43 deaths in the Arizona border area. Arizona is not the only place with fluctuations in border deaths over the years. The Brooks County sheriff's office said this week that migrant deaths in its jurisdiction fell to 34 last year from 45 in 2019.

Trump has expedited border wall construction in his last year, mostly in wildlife refuges and Indigenous territory the government owns in Arizona and New Mexico, avoiding the legal fights over private land in busier crossing areas of Texas. The work has caused environmental damage, preventing animals from moving freely and scarring unique mountain and desert landscapes that conservationists fear could be irreversible. The worst damage is along Arizona’s border, from century-old saguaro cactuses toppled in the western desert to shrinking ponds of endangered fish in eastern canyons. “Building a wall will do little to deter criminals and cartels seeking to exploit our borders,” Biden's transition team has said. Ecologists say damage could be reversed in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, where thousands of tree-like saguaros were bulldozed, with some reportedly replanted elsewhere.

Any U.S. company seeking to import goods from the company would have to prove they were not made with the forced labor of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities subjected to the crackdown. It is the sixth enterprise from the Uighur region whose goods have been blocked by Customs in recent months. “China’s systemic abuse of forced labor in the Xinjiang region should disturb every American business and consumer,” acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said. “Forced labor is a human rights violation that hurts vulnerable workers and introduces unfair competition into global supply chains." Chinese spokesperson Hua defended Chinese labor practices and treatment of Uighurs, while accusing the U.S. of violating market principles and damaging the interests of both countries' companies and consumers.

FILE - In this March 18, 2020, file photo, a Border Patrol agent walks along a border wall separating Tijuana, Mexico, from San Diego, in San Diego. What happened next illustrates how difficult it has become to seek asylum in the United States during the coronavirus pandemic. Alexy, 32, and his son Samuel were whisked to the border in the wee hours of June 28 and returned to Mexico. Alexy believes hiking in the San Diego mountains precipitated Karina's labor. Together with the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties, the group plans to ask the Homeland Security Department to investigate what happened.

President Donald Trump's administration issued the initial 30-day order in March, and it was extended for another month in April. Trumps goal is not to protect our health, its to sow division and advance his political agenda," said Andrea Flores, deputy director of immigration policy for the American Civil Liberties Union. Under the policy, CBP has been sending Mexican and Central American migrants they encounter along the southwestern border back to Mexico in about two hours. But he denied he was using the virus to make good on a long-standing campaign promise during an election year. Also Tuesday, the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court to allow it to terminate an agreement that places limits on the detention of immigrant children.

New video of a huge cocaine bust carried out by Customs and Border Protection agents based here in Jacksonville was shared with News4Jax on Thursday. After two days of tracking, the Air and Marine Operations Team caught up with the vessel in the Eastern Pacific. They seized more than 36-hundred pounds of cocaine and arrested three Colombian nationals. The estimated street value of the drugs is $48 million dollars.

The United States on Friday suspended imports of all tobacco and tobacco products from Malawi for alleged forced labor practices including child labor. (CNN) - The United States on Friday suspended imports of all tobacco and tobacco products from Malawi for alleged forced labor practices -- including child labor. "Malawi tobacco is one of those areas where we are trying to send a message," CBP Office Of Trade Executive Assistant Commissioner Brenda Smith told CNN. Despite some advancement in preventing child labor, children in Malawi are still engaged in the worst forms of child labor, including in the harvesting of tobacco and in commercial sexual exploitation, according to the US Department of Labor. In 2018, CBP received funding for 140 new positions, some of which went to establish the Forced Labor Division and training.

A U.S. Border Patrol boat moves along the Rio Grande on the U.S.-Mexico border. MCALLEN, Texas - Since Thursday, US Border Patrol agents have found three bodies of people who attempted to cross the southern border into the US, a Customs and Border Protection news release says. Two days later, a Coast Guard unit patrolling the river near Mission, Texas, contacted McAllen Border Patrol station about another dead person in the Rio Grande, Border Patrol said. On Sunday, agents patrolling the ranchland in Kenedy County found another person dead in the brush, CBP said. The pair from El Salvador drowned as they were crossing from Mexico into Texas near Brownsville.

John Moore/Getty Images(CNN) - Active duty troops on the southern border with Mexico began carrying out "welfare checks" on detained migrants earlier this month to help out overwhelmed Customs and Border Protection agents, two US defense officials have told CNN. Welfare checks primarily happening in Texas and ArizonaThe welfare checks are primarily happening at CBP border patrol stations in Texas and Arizona. Officials are now detailing what those welfare checks involve. The Department of Homeland Security will provide "mission specific training" for the Texas National Guard personnel, according to a statement by Pentagon spokesman Maj. Chris Mitchell. Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that welfare checks are primarily happening in Texas and Arizona.

The existence of the group "I'm 10-15" was exposed by the investigative reporting group ProPublica. Some members of "The Real CBP Nation" Facebook group reacted to the shuttering of "I'm 10-15" in screenshots of posts and comments. It was not clear if Customs and Border Protection's internal investigative office already knew about the second Facebook group or the content that was posted. "Recently the Agency was made aware of a private Facebook group page that only a specific group of CBP employee could access, on which inappropriate and offensive posts were made," Klein wrote. This story has been updated to include statements from Facebook and Customs and Border Protection that were provided to CNN after publication.

Alex Edelman/Getty Images(CNN) - The company at the center of a major data breach last month has been found "preliminarily ineligible" to conduct business with the federal government pending a final decision, according to government contracting records published Tuesday. CNN reported last month that at least 50,000 American license plate numbers were made available on the dark web after the data breach, according to a CNN analysis of the hacked data. "CBP does not authorize contractors to hold license plate data on non-CBP systems," an agency spokesperson said. In a statement when the breach was announced, CBP said it learned on May 31 that a subcontractor "had transferred copies of license plate images and traveler images collected by CBP to the subcontractor's company network. In addition to the license plate data, a CBP spokesperson said that photos of some travelers -- fewer than 100,000 -- had also been compromised.

Since September, at least six migrant children have died in federal custody, including at least three children taken into Border Patrol custody around El Paso. But Johansson said the Border Patrol does a poor job of initially assessing a child's illness and too often misses early signs of health problems of youngsters in custody. Once at the hospital, border agents or other officers stand guard outside the children's rooms. CNN visited El Paso Children's Hospital on Friday and found a Border Patrol agent sitting outside a 16-year-old girl's room. She told him Border Patrol agents took away her insulin when she was taken into custody and never returned it, he said.