THE Mexican government is in the process of shutting down a massive migrant camp in the southern state of Oaxaca this week.

Tens of thousands of migrants use the camps to obtain temporary transit documents on their way north to the United States border.

A December 21 deadline has been set by a US federal judge to end asylum restrictions used to expel asylum-seekers crossing the border between Mexico and its northern neighbour.

Mexico’s National Immigration Institute announced the closure of the camp in the remote town of San Pedro Tapanatepec, without explaining why.

The agency said it would continue supporting migrants in other installations, without specifying where.

The camp was originally opened in late July as a way of relieving pressure on the southern city of Tapachula on the border with Guatemala. 

Under US pressure, Mexico tried to contain the flow of migrants within the southernmost part of the country. 

But with its asylum system overwhelmed by applications from people who in most cases just want safe passage to the US border, Mexico began issuing more temporary documents that give migrants a matter of days to travel within the country. 

Even with such documents, many migrants have reported authorities in other parts of the country destroying their papers and shipping them back to the southern border.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders said the government had continued issuing documents to the end and had accelerated the process in the final days.

Helmer Charris of the organisation said: “What we saw was that the number of immigration personnel increased, the speed of the process increased a lot and the same day the migrants could travel with their documents.”

According to federal government data, through early November more than 135,000 migrants had passed through the camp.