At around 6,000 people, the migrant caravan that set out on Sunday for the US was the largest one since June 2022.
The migrants spent Christmas night sleeping on a scrap of cardboard or plastic stretched out under an awning or tent, or the bare ground, near the town of Álvaro Obregón, in the southern state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala.
In the morning, it was waking as usual at 4 am, to get an early start and avoid the worst of the heat, walking to the next town, Huixtla, 30 kilometres away.
What little help they've had came from local families, one of whom gave out tamales and water to the passing migrants.
The migrants want to reach the US border, and are angry and frustrated at having to wait weeks or months in the nearby city of Tapachula for documents that might allow them to continue their journey.
Mexico claims it doesn't give out transit visas, but migrants keep hoping to get some sort of document so they could at least take buses to the border.
Mexico says it detected 680,000 migrants moving through the country in the first 11 months of 2023.
In 2022, the wave of migrants started as US President Joe Biden hosted leaders in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas.
This year's Christmas caravan came a few days before US officials are to meet with their Mexican counterparts in Mexico City to explore ways of stemming the number of migrants showing up at the US southwest border.
The Mexican government has already said it is willing to help try to block migrants from crossing Mexico; the government had little choice, after US officials briefly closed two vital Texas railway border crossings, claiming they were overwhelmed by processing migrants.
That put a chokehold on freight moving from Mexico to the United States, as well as grain needed to feed Mexican livestock moving south. The rail crossings have since been reopened, but the message was clear.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to arrive in Mexico City on Wednesday to hammer out new agreements to control the surge of migrants seeking entry into the United States.
This month, as many as 10,000 migrants were arrested per day at the US southwest border.
In May, Mexico agreed to take in migrants from countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba who had been turned away by the US for not following rules that provided new legal pathways to asylum and other forms of migration.
But that deal, aimed at curbing a post-pandemic jump in migration, appears to be insufficient as numbers rise once again, disrupting bilateral trade and stoking anti-migrant sentiment among conservative voters in the US
Arrests for illegal crossing topped 2 million in each of the US government's last two fiscal years, reflecting technological changes that have made it easier for migrants to leave home to escape poverty, natural disasters, political repression and organised crime.
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