Fox News reporter Bill Melugin said Sunday that Customs and Border Patrol agents did not expect a brief lull in the mass border crossings to be a permanent development.

Melugin said that although there had been a precipitous drop in crossings in the days since Title 42 — a Trump-era policy that allowed deportations based on the ongoing public health crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic — agents believe that once focus is diverted elsewhere, the numbers will begin to climb again.

The number of crossings along the U.S. southern border has dropped by 50% since pandemic-related asylum restrictions expired on Thursday, contradicting earlier fears that there would be a surge, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday.

U.S. Border Patrol counted roughly 6,300 crossings on Friday and 4,300 on Saturday, down from more than 10,000 before Title 42 expired on Thursday night, Mayorkas told CNN’s Dana Bash.

Texas lawmakers are mulling a plan to create a state-run border enforcement group amid dissatisfaction with the Biden administration's handling of border security and an onset of new arrivals.

Under the proposed H.B. 20, the state would create a "border protection unit" with the power to "arrest, apprehend or detain persons crossing the Texas-Mexico border unlawfully," according to The Hill. The enforcement group would operate in the counties directly bordering Mexico.

A 17-year-old boy living in a Safety Harbor shelter for unaccompanied migrant children died on Wednesday after being transferred to Mease Countryside Hospital, according to Bill Pellan, director of investigations for the District Six Medical Examiner Office.

Pellan said further details of the boy’s death could not be released due to the ongoing investigation. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the active case and declined to release records.

A 17-year-old migrant child from Honduras who arrived in the U.S. without a parent or guardian has died in government custody in Florida, officials said Friday, in what is believed to be the first such death in years. 

Enrique Reina, the Honduran secretary of foreign affairs, identified the child as Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza and called for an "exhaustive investigation" into his death. Reina said the child was being held at a shelter used to house unaccompanied children in Safety Harbor, Florida, a small city west of Tampa.

The Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed the death of a migrant child in U.S. custody.

The department released a statement on Friday regarding the death of the child, but did not reveal where the child died.

"The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is deeply saddened by this tragic loss and our heart goes out to the family, with whom we are in touch," it said.

Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Atlanta on Friday for a Democratic Party “spring soiree” — instead of visiting the US-Mexico border in her role as migration czar as thousands of people illegally enter America after the lifting of the Title 42 COVID-19 expulsion policy.

Harris will depart Washington around noon and appear mid-afternoon at a Democratic National Committee finance event before being the guest of honor at the Democratic Party of Georgia’s Spring Soiree.

Claim: As Trump-era public health order Title 42 expired on May 11, 2023, the Biden administration implemented another restrictive policy pertaining to asylum-seekers. Similar to a Trump-era rule, this one disqualifies migrants from U.S. protection if they fail to seek refuge in a third country, like Mexico, before crossing the U.S. southern border.

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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas confidently insisted on Thursday that the Biden administration is ready to respond to a massive influx of migrants expected to cross the border as Title 42 expires, but he also acknowledged the situation will be chaotic for a while.

House Republicans passed a sweeping border security package Thursday that lawmakers in both parties and chambers said could spark bipartisan negotiations on immigration measures.

The House voted 219-213 to pass the bill, which would restart border wall construction, restrict asylum and more. No Democrats supported the bill, and two Republicans also voted against it: Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie and California Rep. John Duarte.