Mexico sets rules for handling underage migrants at U.S. border

Mexico is promoting new guidelines for handling the large number of children migrants traveling alone along its border with the United States, the Foreign Affairs Ministry said Tuesday.

The protocol, drawn up with the help of the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), aims to guarantee unaccompanied underage migrants the right to basic physical and psychological attention, including food, clothing and rest.

Migrant children taken into custody by authorities will also be helped to contact their families via free phone calls and be accompanied during their repatriation, according to the new guidelines.

Mexico's Deputy Minister for North American Affairs, Sergio Alcocer, launched a pilot program for the protection of unaccompanied children and adolescents during a meeting late Monday with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency, the ministry said in a press release.

Alcocer was also touring renovation work at the Reynosa-Pharr international border crossing, between the U.S. city of McAllen, Texas and the Mexican city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas.

The border bridge handles 60 percent of cargo traffic between the two nations.

According to the protection agency, in 2014, more than 66,000 unaccompanied underage migrants, or "alien children" as the agency calls them, were apprehended at the border. Enditem