Migrant caravan advances north as U.S. officials head to Mexico

Thousands of migrants and asylum seekers moved slowly north across the southern Mexican state of Chiapas on Tuesday in a caravan hoping to reach the U.S. border, one day before top U.S. officials planned to visit Mexico to discuss migration.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas will visit Mexico to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The officials will discuss "unprecedented irregular migration in the Western Hemisphere and identify ways Mexico and the United States will address border security challenges," according to a statement from State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

The meeting comes a week after U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Lopez Obrador by telephone, during which the two leaders said that more enforcement was needed at their shared frontier.

On Wednesday, migrants and asylum seekers, many carrying small children, walked along the highway near the southern Mexican city of Villa Comaltitlán. Some held a banner reading "Exodus from poverty."

Rosa, from El Salvador, said she hoped the officials would ease the suffering of migrants.