Mexico City, Jun 6 (IANS): Mexican authorities have intercepted a US-bound caravan of roughly 500 Central American migrants a few hours after entering Mexico.

The group crossed the bridge linking Guatemala to Mexico early Wednesday morning, reports Efe news.

The migrants were trying to reach Tapachula, some 40 km inside Mexico, but they made it only as far as the town of Metapa, 20 km from the border, before being intercepted by around 200 immigration agents and members of the National Guard.

Authorities then loaded the migrants aboard buses for the journey to the Tapachula facilities of the National Migration Institute (Inami) for processing.

Since last October, thousands of Central American migrants have set out across Mexico in caravans with hopes of reaching the US to apply for asylum.

The migrants, most of them residents of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, say they are fleeing high levels of violence in their countries.

US President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to build a wall on the Mexican border to halt illegal immigration, has repeatedly demanded that Mexico put a halt to the mass migration.

On May 30, Trump said his administration would impose escalating tariffs on Mexico unless it took aggressive steps to stop the flow of illegal migrants from Central America.