julia ainsley takes us inside their mission >> reporter: we are in texas with u.s. border patrol agents getting a rare look at what can be a deadly journey, for the record number of migrants trying to cross the border >> it's very unfortunate but almost two to three times a week seems we're getting or finding individuals have to come through the elements. >> reporter: this pregnant woman caught by agents needing urgent medical attention. nearby, a group of 80 migrants, including many children, turn themselves in after making the dangerous trek across the rio grande >> they've taken their lives in their hands >> yes that's why we le people know there's inherent risk with coming to the u.s. illegally. >> reporter: this wall is one obstacle of many on a migrant's dangerous journey north to america, and as scorching temperatures rise and the number of migrants isn't going down, officials worry they'll soon see more and more deaths. deaths among migrants here are now up 58%. >> you are talking about thousands of acres, thick vegetation, the sun. they're about to walk for

julia ainsley, nbc news, mission, texas >>> now to desperation at another border, syria's border with turkey with russia threatening to cut off aid that many refugees rely on, now the u.s. is getting involved. andrea mitchell is in turkey >> reporter: tonight a crisis in syria near the border with turkey millions of refugees bombed out of their homes by the assad regime during ten years of civil war children working for pennies a day scavenging through garbage. and now covid spreading. this widow, omra khan, with nine children their home destroyed by a bomb. two of her children losing part of their arms a third badly burned from shrapnel. she says, "i wish my hand was chopped off, not theirs these kids who are injured need everything," she says. "they need help. they need everything." but russia, supporting syria's assad regime, is now threatening to close the last of four corridors for western aid trucks, a lifeline to 4 million people including her son, raqan, who says -- "there are kids who are sicker than i am and they need this." emergency medics, the volunteer white helmets, try

joining us now we have nbc news correspondent julia ainsley. they're faced with. >> so, alisa, i've been covering these numbers a long time. you and i talked about these policies that were put in place to try to mitigate the spread of covid, but i actually had the opportunity to travel to the rio grande valley and spend a week with the border protection and with these families as they tried to figure out if they should come in with their children or send them alone. that's because children are guaranteed to come in, but with covid restrictions, not all of them are allowed in. it's a very difficult decision, as you'll see. take a listen. >> reporter: so far this season, more children crossed the border than all of 2018. a stunning 78,000. that's not counting children who crossed the border with their families. like kelly. her mother brought her from ecuador so this six-year-old could have ear surgery. >> i know it's a blessing to be able to cross over because not everyone has the same luck. >> reporter: here in the rio grande valley, many familie

also with us, correspondent julia ainsley, who follows the doj and dhs for nbc news. at more do we know about the allegations coming from the hhs intake facility at ft. bliss? biden and harris say they want becerra to conduct a thorough investigation. your sense of what that would look like? >> well, we have known it's been overcrowded for some time. and that's the problem with a lot of these emergency intake facilities is that they're unlicensed by the states and they don't always have a lot of oversight. what we have seen time and time again, and jacob and i covered this when there was overcrowded in border patrol in 2019, is allegations of taking a long time to be investigated both by dhs and hhs. right now, the administration is admitting, yes, it's overcrowded, as far as the allegations in court reports about people being on suicide watch, a list that was almost 30 children long, where they were monitored for their every moves, the poor food, the sleeping conditions, how incredibly hot it's been in there. children trying to run away, all of those are things that a

let's bring in julia ainsley who went inside the mission at the border.. the number of migrants is not going down. we have seen this year across the border a 20-year high on border crossings. we have given exclusive access to the missing migrant program, where agents are called to go out to recover -- to rescue migrants or recover those who didn't make it. we are in texas with u.s. border patrol agents getting a rare look at what can be a deadly journey. >> it's very unfortunate. almost two to three times a week it seems we are getting or finding individuals that have succumbed to the elements. >> reporter: this pregnant woman caught by agents and needing urgent medical attention. >> she had been running for some time. >> reporter: a group of 80 migrants, including children, turned themselves in after making the dangerous trek across the rio grande. they have taken their lives in their hands. >> yes. that's why we let people know there's risk with coming to the u.s. illegally. >> reporter: this border wall is one obstacle of many on a migrant's dangerous

let's bring in julia ainsley to walk us through this.were rejected, what's different about their situation now that would give it reason to be heard? >> reporter: well, it's different now because those people who came under the trump administration, and, again, this does not apply to people who recently arrived under this administration, but if you came under the trump administration and you were told that you had to wait in mexico until your court date came up in the united states, many of those people might have been ordered in absentia because they didn't show up. a lot of times that was because border patrol failed to send them a notice. now they estimate about 34,000 immigrants could now be able to come in and have their cases heard, even if they previously had those canceled for not showing up. >> understood. julia, thank you so much. >>> we're going to stay on this, but coming up next, in the city of los angeles, homicides are up more than 20%, while the number of shooting victims is up 50%. a similar surge we have seen across the

. >> that was nbc's julia ainsley reporting. >>> joining us now, editor in chief with axios, nicholass morning? >> today's one big thing is the end of our covid map. 56 weeks ago today, i sat in my opinion kitchen and ununveiled the new famous weekly axios coronavirus map. this is tracking the rise and fall, mostly rise, of infections of coronavirus across the united states. and now with the vaccine coming out, you can see the map, it's all green, looking great in all 50 states. case counts are flat or declining. they're at the lowest point, 16,000 new infections a day now, which we haven't seen since early march in the pandemic, when testinging was far much lower and we had no real idea of the scope of this pandemic, and now with the spread of vaccines, case counts are at a point where the map has become pointless. we're ready to move on to something else. it's great news how the united states has had a great response to the pandemic. there are still concerns about pockets of flare-ups. vaccination pating has slowed down a lot from earlier, from more than 3 million new vaccination da