Tapachula, Mexico - At least 500 people, including many asylum seekers and refugees, have launched a march across southern Mexico to protest restrictions on migration introduced under pressure from the US.

The protesters departed from Tapachula on Tuesday night, planning to follow a route that many migrants and asylum seekers end up taking when they cross the border with Guatemala and begin making the journey north.

Tapachula has been the starting point of many similar protests over recent years.

In particular, demonstrators are frustrated with the difficult process of applying for legal status in Mexico. They have cited long waiting lists and strict restrictions on their movements as major barriers towards finding jobs and rebuilding their life in Mexico.

Many migrants are reportedly also being asked to pay more than $2,000 for documentation that is legally free under Mexican law.

"Without papers, there are no opportunities," Joandri Velazquez Zaragoza, a 40-year-old Cuban citizen, said according to Al Jazeera. "We migrants feel like prisoners in Tapachula."

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum's government has done little to improve bureaucracy and reduce restrictions on migrants entering Mexico, and is seeking to further control the flow of people north amid pressure from President Donald Trump's administration.

The US is increasingly seeking "third-party" countries to take migrants that it has opted to deport, often without due process.

Last year, El Salvador became a center-piece of the scheme, with thousands of people abducted off US streets and sent to a brutal prison camp.