U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske says a new international media campaign will be aimed at slowing illegal immigration.
Kerlikowske made the announcement Wednesday in South Texas while standing beside the Rio Grande in Mission. He says 226 immigrants have died crossing the border since October.
The campaign will include hundreds of billboards and some 6,500 public service announcements for radio and television stations in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
One offering has an image of a child's footprints in the desert running toward the horizon with the message in Spanish: "I thought it would be easy for my son to get papers in the USA...I was wrong."
More than 52,000 unaccompanied children have been detained since October after entering the U.S. illegally, mostly in South Texas.
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