A group of migrants heading for the US border has reached 7,000 people since setting off on Monday from southern Mexico.
The migrant caravan is made up of people from Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Venezuela.
Officials from the Mexican state of Chiapas said 3,500 migrants set off on foot from the city of Tapachula near the Guatemalan border.
One of the organisers, Irineo Mujica, told cable network Real America’s Voice, the Biden administration has “dropped the ball,” and that his immigration policies were to blame for the current immigration crisis.
He said: ”Organised crime is already taking over Chiapas, violence is everywhere. We are trying to save lives with these kinds of actions.”
Many migrants are fleeing economic and political unrest in their home countries. One Venezuelan father told Reuters: “In Venezuela things are very tough, we can't live with the money we get, it's not enough for us, and that's why we're going to the United States.”
Another migrant told Mexican newspaper La Jornada: "I could not keep on waiting without money, sleeping in the street, that's not a life. Better that we should head up [northwards] and let's hope the [Mexican] government helps us, doesn't stop us."
This is the largest march since a migrant caravan bound for the US set off with 6,000 people from the southern border in June 2022.
Since Biden took office in 2021, the US-Mexico border has seen an increase in migrants crossing. In September, Border Patrol apprehended more than 200,000 migrants crossing the US-Mexico border unlawfully according to Homeland Security, making it the highest this year.
The southern border has struggled to cope with the influx of people crossing through the Darien Gap between Columbia and Panama. Colombian smugglers have profited from the route, smuggling in an estimated 420,000 people since September this year, according to Panamanian migration officials.
Biden, who has been criticised for his handling of US-Mexico border crossings, is set to host a summit on migration with South American leaders on Friday to discuss how to curb the issue.
